The most stunted disappointment of a game ever. I really regret purchasing this and I'll tell you why.

User Rating: 2.5 | Saints Row: The Third X360
By LeifLongbottom | Review Date:
It's sad because SR2 is one of my favorite games from this generation but SR3 is one of the most disappointing games ever. It would have been bad enough if they had just made the map smaller and less interesting, less missions, less side missions, less hidden activities, and the list goes on and on. However what makes me wish I hadn't bought SR3 is that it also incorporates every single greedy money grubbing scheme the industry has come up with this generation. It has the online pass, on-disc dlc, day 1 dlc, the season pass (getting people to buy dlc before they even have any idea of what it is or what kind of value it has) with a promise of tons of more dlc. It's quite obvious that they pruned this game to the bare bones so they could sell it to us in a million little parts.
What happened to the generous volition that gave us huge game worlds with tons of fun stuff to do in them? Did they get bought up by EA or Activision or something like that? I really don't understand how something like this can happen so quickly. It's a real travesty.
What do they give you? You get a really really short main campaign that would've been good if it wasn't so short it can be finished in a weekend. The absurdity gradually ranks up and you have to make some big choices as to what bonuses/unlockables you want. The side missions have been paired down but they also added a couple that are fun but not fun enough to make up for the disappearance of everything else. However, it seems that the side missions (for the most part) don't reward you with anything but an achievement trophy as opposed to the perks & unlockables you got in SR2. The little hidden activities have been paired down too. You can still go streaking, hood surfing, and hostage taking but that's about it.
The new city is a lot smaller than the one from Saints Row 2 and it has fewer interesting places to explore. Rather than having malls, cathedrals, caverns, and all those other weird locations, the whole city looks like the same houses, buildings, and (when they want to mix things up) smokestacks copied and pasted over a very flat grid. I would've been more accepting of a smaller map had they at least given it some interesting features to make those random gun battles different every time but it's just the same thing pasted over and over again. So once you're done with the small amount of the missions, you have very little encouragement to keep playing around the way I did with Saints Row 2.
I can understand if you really want to play this because you loved Saints Row 2. However, I must implore you to rent it instead. Besides it being a stunted dwarf of a game compared to it's predecessor, it was very clearly made to be a quick cash grab off the loyal fans. Well, they're short one (once) loyal fan now.

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