Ignoring the fact that comparing MP3 to GR:FS is a bit of a stretch
Two third-person shooters, releasing for the same platforms, both featuring ranged combat, linear narratives and competitive online multiplayer modes. Of course you can compare the two.
Having clocked MP3, I can tell you that it still suffers from Rockstar's patented janky controls and does not hold a candle to the fluidity of FS, which feels like a born and bred TPS; MP3 feels like GTA4 modded to be more of a TPS. Don't get me wrong, it controls fine, but it's still fucked enough for me to take issue with it, especially when such a game basically hinges on how it controls.
This has been discussed ad nauseam in the MP OT and is utter ass. While movement in Payne isn't as fluid as Future Soldier, it's far and away better than GTAIV. People that believe otherwise need to go back and actually replay Grand Theft Auto. If anything, it's much more like Red Dead Redemption. Are the controls clunky? Mayhaps, ...though I'm not sure they are. They DO increase the believability that Max is a middle-aged has been who's abused his body to excess. Convenient? Sure, but it'd be jarring if the guy moved like a twenty-something special forces operative.
Still, the game controls fine enough for people who have completed the (long) campaign to jump straight into the New York Minute mode without complaint.
Anyway, such a juxtaposition is purely one of mechanics vs. presentation. MP3 wins out compre-fucking-hensively in the latter, but loses out in the former. Shoot-dodging actually gets old.
I dunno. I found the excessive handholding, a weak attempt at "tactical" gameplay with the syncshot mechanic and a completely unnecessary revive mechanic that does nothing to punish unskilled gameplay more tiresome than shootdodging my way through MP3.
The GRAW games were superior in tone and presentation to Future Soldier. They weren't perfect either, and while I enjoyed the "weightiness" of the characters and the sticky cover system, many others didn't. But both were far more impressive than this game, and it's a real shame because it could have been so much more. The Call of Duty game have awfully weak campaign modes too and people accept that because they're actually interested in the online components. But here, the campaign and guerilla modes are extremely weak, and the competitive multiplayer alone, while fun for the most part, isn't worth the RRP. I loved the previous games, loved the RB6V games, even enjoyed Conviction for all it's flaws, but I bought this at launch and feel like I've been ripped off.
Some people seem to feel as though the game is drawing a lot of unfair criticism because of how it "looks". It can't be argued that any aspect of the game is visually pleasing and I'm not sure how this far into the generation, with standout titles like BF3, Crysis 2 and The Witcher 2 this could be deemed acceptable. Hell, at times the game can look as rough as Skyrim and for the most part it doesn't even look as good as Spec Ops: The Line... another massively underwhelming game that had plenty of promise. The image quality doesn't even match up to SOCOM 4.
Story, dialogue, character models, environment textures etc are all sub-par. It has nice controls and animations though and it appears to be selling. Good for Ubi, but let's hope Patriots is way better eh...
