A quick summary of reviews for Max Payne 3...
GamesRadar - 100
It maintains the mechanics that made the prior games great while modernizing them to excellent effect. Between the arcade mode and multiplayer, there's enough substantive content to keep you hooked for some time.
G4 TV - 100
A technological tour de force that will have you screaming "Dear lord!" more times than midnight mass. The performances are top notch, the action plays out with unrivaled fluidity, and the multiplayer is deep and rewarding. Silly distractions aside, Max Payne 3 is an action lover's wet dream that also happens to employ some of the slickest direction and transitional trickery this side of a David Fincher box set.
Game Informer - 93
The coolest multiplayer mode offered is Gang Wars. This mode pits two teams against each other and incorporates story threads from the campaign to shape the five rounds. How a round ends dictates what the next objective will be, a design that keeps the battles fresh.
Xbox360Achievements - 93
A true cinematic gaming masterpiece, Max Payne 3 is not just another triumph for Rockstar, but it's also testament to what the developer can do when it turns its hand to linear storytelling. Max Payne 3 might be a stylistic shift for the series, but it's also a raw and brutal portrait of a man pushed to the edge that deserves a place alongside Rockstar's superlative open-world efforts.
GameSpot - 90
With its gripping narrative, brutal violence, and fantastic implementation of Max Payne's bullet-time ability, this is a distinctive and outstanding game through and through, and it's easily a worthy successor to the Max Payne games that preceded it.
Destructoid - 90
It's damn good fun, creating an environment of chaos and thrilling combat. The new Rockstar Social Club features allow players to team up easily in Crews, pairing them up with players on teams who are members of the same Crew, and it makes it easy to get into a game with people you might actually want to play with.
Joystiq - 90
The transition from emotionally tinged burial ground to functional battleground is at once touching and tasteless, presented in that kind of awkward, bittersweet combination that video games have gotten down to an art form.
OXM UK - 80
The repetitive action might be reminiscent of the original games, but it's still repetition, and ultimately that causes things to drag. Fortunately just like Max himself it's also difficult to dislike - the plot isn't something you'll be able to leave alone for long, bullet time still has the capacity to thrill and the multiplayer provides the variety and unpredictability required for genuine longevity.
Giant Bomb - 80
While fans might have a hard time processing the dramatic change in tone, it's approached with a seriousness and conviction that I respect, and frankly, have come to expect from Rockstar.
OXM - 80
Seemingly cognizant of how tough it can be, the game gives you an extra bottle of health-restoring painkillers for every few times you restart at the same spot, but the situation is gratingly exacerbated by Max Payne 3's erratic checkpoint system. More often than not, you'll have to replay painfully long stretches of white-knuckle sequences, turning levels into chores, not treats.
GameTrailers - 76
Attempting a character study of a deeply flawed action hero is an interesting gamble that just doesn't pay off, and the single-player experience continually struggles with leveraging the character's identity or unique skills. So it's got some issues. That said, the surprisingly entertaining multiplayer modes and a virtuoso treatment of extreme violence stand out as legitimate highpoints. It all basically comes down to your tolerance for pain.
Eurogamer - 70
You can't escape the feeling that Rockstar just isn't as good at a pure third-person shooter as it is with the open worlds of Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption, and in this linear context it's much harder to put up with its usual missteps in mechanics and difficulty.
EDGE Magazine - 70
A surprisingly conservative game from Rockstar. Its absorption of cover mechanics makes Payne feel more familiar than he should, but even then his signature tricks are over a decade old. This is a game about a world-weary killer doing the only thing he knows how to, and for all its spectacular action beats there's something apt about Max's fatigue.
