To be fair, my favorite has always been the first, so I'm not gonna bother much with the second.
I do strongly disagree with:
a) MP1&2 writing being appaling: it's not, it had style and flair and it was goofy, but in a way that was immensely enjoyable and gripping. It wasn't Tolstoi but it worked really, really well.
b) Dan Houser is an improvement: no, in no fucking way, and I'm actually surprised you're citing the first two as student film wannabes, when the first two actually embraced the gaming medium with little to none cutscenes, and using a comic book aesthetic that was very unique and was very forward-thinking compared to what games used to be, had a literary quality that few games would ever reach, even if, again, it wasn't Tolstoi, it worked great. And then you had in-gameplay dream sequences, TV shows, enemy dialogue and other very videogame details that made it a very gamey experience.
Now compare that to Max Payne 3, which feels like it needs a cutscene to show that Max opened a door or flipped a switch or sees an enemy.
Max Payne 3 is the real student film wannabe, and it's a shitty movie with social commentary that goes nowhere because not even the Housers know what the hell they were meaning to say, and that destroys a beloved character by turning him into an emo guy depressed about the thing that cost him two games to get over. R* had a clean slate to start with, Max was over his family's death and ready to break new frontiers, and R* just decided he should become a drunk and have a depressive relapse because, hey, that Man on Fire movie was really cool!
