Overall I'd say this is a game worth getting. It may not be worth $60 but it's still strong and I don't feel bad that I spent money on it.

PROS:
- The Story:
This game has one of the best stories an action game has had in recent memory. It's nice to play as a Black War Veteran Anti-Hero, it's a direction that hasn't been taken in many games in the past. It also features a cast of interesting characters (at least the ones of any significance to the story). Without spoiling too much the high point of the story is definitely the confrontation at the end between Clay and the villain; it is realistically one of my favorite moments in any video game. The story isn't perfect, it isn't as good as Mafia II's story and is sadly spread too far and few between by an abundance of repetitive (and unskippable) story missions that don't actually progress the plot. Overall though the story and characters are so well written that it has to be a plus.

-Combat:
Combat is definitely improved in this game over its predecessors. The inclusion of the stealth and brutal execution mechanics are key points which make this a fun game to play. Nothing is more satisfying than brutally stabbing a mafiosa repeatedly in the face and then taking out his startled friend with a close range shotgun to the gut that sends him ragdolling back through the air.

There is also a great amount of flexibility in the combat tactics you can use in the game. Stealth, going in guns-a-blazing, and any mixture of the two are all valid and useable combat tactics in MAFIA III. It also is really rewarding to stealth through one of the racket missions just to sneak up on the man in charge and grab him before he knows what's going on. I do need to make note that the AI is pretty stupid, especialy when it comes to the stealth; they will often times look right past you and you can make them throw caution to the wind with a simple whistle to draw them to an area where you can stealth kill them with a simple press of the 'Q' key. The flexibility doesn't just come in tactics either. There are a wide range of weapons and explosives to choose from. Although it is kind of lame that you have very limited ammo supplies (even with the upgrades) and additionally can only carry two weapons, one small arms and one large arms weapon. I found myself often times dropping the extremely overpriced weapons I had bought purely out of the lack of ammo supply. Regardless of these small issues the combat definitely felt improved over Mafia II.

- Exploration:
Exploring New Bordeaux in Mafia III is a lot of fun. Each area feels pretty different from any of the others which is crazy considering there are 10 different areas in the city. While exploration isn't very fruitful, aside from gathering collectibles (see cons), it is still enjoyable for explorations sake. If you want to be rewarded tangibly for exploring you may not enjoy the exploration but if you just enjoy virtual site seeing you'll have a good time.

-Soundtrack:
The soundtrack is great. While I prefered Mafia II's soundtrack (jazz is my jam), the use of classic rock songs at specific points of the game was great. Also the twangy 'bayou' music that plays during a lot of cutscenes and at the title screen is also great. It does a great job at establishing the setting and the subtle changes depending on actions are both articulate and well executed. I also enjoyed the brief moments where a jazzy song would come on, usually while checking out the map, but that is just me.

Intermediate:
These are topics that weren't really positives but weren't really negatives either

Difficulty:
I beat the game with relative ease on the hardest difficulty. It seems rather unbalanced to be quite honest. There were certain parts that were extremely difficult and others that were a breeze. These moments were generally outliers though, most of the game gave a challenge but not a frustrating one. The way the health and armor worked were also pretty unbalanced and annoying. Fully upgraded you have four health bars, but getting shot with a shotgun puts you down to about half of a bar, and then only that bar will refill unless you use medicine (which is extra annoying because the game insists on making medicine hard to come by when you need it and expensive to buy for how often you need to use it for it to be effective). Similarly the armor that you spent $3000 on would disappear after a shotgun shot and pistol shot combined. While it may be helpful in a few situations on the whole it doesn't really do too much. That being said, this was only really noticable at certain times. The challenge was generally pretty fair (except for two particular instances) and definitely made it difficult to try and storm in on an area guns blazing if there were many people there. As I said earlier I beat the game on the hardest difficulty, and while that wasn't the most difficult of accomplishments it is certainly better than many modern games I can think of that are just so frustratingly difficult on harder settings.

Driving:
The driving in Mafia III feels pretty meh. A lot of the nuiance that existed in Mafia II was scrapped. Speed limiter was totally removed. One improvement though is that while the driving AI is still stupid, they look like geniuses compared to the drivers in Mafia II. One really annoying aspect of the driving is that you will often hit something and die but it isn't consistent. Sometimes you can get in a head on collision at max speed and live, others you hit a twig in a boat going 3/4 of max speed and die. This is definitely annoying when you make a lot of progress in a mission just to be set back to the last checkpoint for something stupid. I do have to say that driving really fast and with lots of drifting does feel great in this game, possibly better than it does in Mafia II. I should mention I was playing with the realistic driving settings on.

Cons:

Repetitive:
By the end I was pretty much bored of doing the same old racket missions over and over again just to get to the Story missions in between. That being said it was worth it to grind through for the story. Nevertheless, I wish that they could have used more original ideas than the very common, go here, kill this person or destroy this stuff approach. Racket missions also completely lacked story elements. At first they were fun but you have to remember, there are 18 rackets to take over. It gets old. Also I should mention that all the side missions (Vito's were actually pretty cool but that was because if you played Mafia II you had a little insider information as to what was going on and you had motivation to do it) were ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful. Burke's specifically were terrible. Stealing multiple of the same car was so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. Same thing with the missions you were given to boost rackets. There's only so many times you can steal a boat full of marijuana before it gets old.

Lack of Immersion and Customization
In Mafia II you had to buy guns and clothes at stores, could store and customize cars, had to fill up cars with gas, and coulld stick up stores. It really sucks to come to Mafia III and see all those things gone. Lincoln is stuck in the same outfit the whole game (aside from story missions where a specific costume is given for the duration of the mission) and while he has stored cars, they are all unlocked and have to be called in, you don't have a garage that you retrieve them from as previously done. You also buy all your guns and ammo and upgrades from the back of a van that you call in which takes away from the Immersion as well. Empire Bay felt like a real city, New Bordeaux really didn't.

Collectables:
They have no achievement or even in game benefit for collectors. They're in the way.

Summary:
It plays very much like Saints Row 2 but more serious and story orientend than goofy and without the immersive factors that Mafia II had previously brought to the series.