It's quite difficult finding an actual review on TW:Warhammer 3 as the Steam page is taken up by CA's exploitative DLC policies, their dumb forum comments and the White Knights trying to defend everything. I'll get to all that stuff in a while. But how's the actual game?

Game Play
Just in case someone doesn't know, here's the quick and dirty about the TW series. It's a turn based 4X game on the strategic map and a expansive RTS on the tactical battles. It's geared more towards combat (eXterminate) than the other 3Xs (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit) with those engaging RTS fights. If you really are new to the series this game has a pretty thorough tutorial as well. Bonus points for that.

As someone who owns all 3 TW: Warhammer games, I'm actually at a bit of a loss to find the differences between War 2 and 3. There are different factions available in Warhammer 3 and some quality of life improvements, a few new interesting mechanics and expanded settlement battles. The settlement battles were divisive on launch but I personally I think they're decent if a bit confusing. The improvements are minor but they do add up.

The combat maps are decidedly better, with a few more obstacles, hills and the like to use to your advantage. The maps have come a long way since the wide-open Warhammer 1 maps. Graphics have been improved over the life of the series and the game is really a joy to look at.

Of course, there are the new factions. I've been playing Grand Cathay for the last 30 hours and they "feel right" to me. I like generally playing the good factions and tend to turtle a bit. Having a faction with some decent troops behind a huge wall is kind of up my alley. But I'm looking forward to playing some of the other factions as well. That's the thing about this series, especially if you have the prior games and DLCs. As long as you don't get bored of the game play, there's always someone new to play.

The main draw of either is in owning the previous entries. War 2 has the Mortal Empires mode, which combines the factions and maps of Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 (if you own both games on the same platform). Warhammer 3 has the Immortal Empires game mode, which has the combined maps and factions of all three games. It's massive, with about 180+ factions playing at the start. But if you don't own the prior games, you're going to be very, very frustrated when you open the game and find there are around 25 different factions to play and you have access to maybe 6 or 7 of them. More on the DLC later.

The world-building/city-management hasn't changed much. You still build from a relatively small pool of buildings (level 5 for a capital, 3 for a settlement), grow your city to build better troops. Depending on your difficulty level you may find yourself swimming in money which means it's time to build more armies and fight some more.

I've already mentioned the RTS battles. They're really good here. The Warhammer universe, with its magic and very diverse unit types, really suits this engine. In some prior TW games the combat felt "samey" very quickly as you fought essentially the same units with different skins over and over again, Not so here. Each race feels very different and I find myself trying to understand my opponents more in this game. What do they have? Magic? Flying Units? Poison? Mega artillery? How do I overcome that? Of course, there's always the auto-resolve for when you get tired of combat.

Bugs, DLC, Creative ASSembly and Community Uproar
It wouldn't be a fair review if I didn't mention why this game has Mixed ratings.

(1) By all accounts it released in a pretty bad state - buggy, slow, etc. I didn't get into this until the 4.1 patch and in 30 hours I've hit only 1 bug that caused me to have to drop to the desktop. There may be some other bugs and issues with factions but I'm not in the weeds enough to know what those are. There are still some lengthy loading times for combat maps (30 seconds to 1 minute) as well. So while it was buggy, it's not really that way any longer. Still, you only have one chance to make a first impression and War 3's wasn't great for many folks.

(2) The DLC policies are exploitative. First of all, if you don't own TW:War 1 and 2, you're going to HATE loading this game up because most of the Immortal Empires races will be locked. If you're still enjoying Warhammer 2 and you are looking to expand your experience, you would do well to purchase the first game right now instead of the third. It's cheaper, has just as much new content, and will enable you to play Mortal Empires which is an incredible campaign. You'll get to explore The Old World from Warhammer 1, which then borders the location of Warhammer 3. So you'll be able to orient yourself better if you go on to complete the trilogy at some point on the future.

(3) Then there are the DLC prices. $25 for the Chaos Dwarves? That's insane. They raised the prices of their DLC and now are offering less content for each. Yes, the DLC is optional but it's still just...wrong, especially for loyal fans who own the first 2 games and much of that DLC. Shame.

(4) Then there's Creative (Ass)embly's attitude towards their community. There's really no excuse for their widespread forum bans or telling people the right to leave a negative comment on the forums is a "privilege". They've also gone to war with some of their best YouTube channels like Legend of TW. Frankly, CA needs a rectal-cranial extraction. The community has every right to be upset and CA needs to do better.

When it comes right down to it, I'm enjoying the game. The game play, races, Immortal Empires campaign....it's a pretty great experience. So yeah, I'm going to recommend it with the caveats I mentioned above.
(1) If you have 1 & 2 and enjoy the game play then 3 is pretty much a must-buy.
(2) If you don't have 1 & 2 and want to try one of these titles with a good tutorial, this is also a great choice so long as you understand the DLC spam.
(3) But if you have that FOMO and you're going to get upset about not having access to 80% of the races in Immortal Empires, stay clear. Go buy #2, get some of the DLC on sale and play that one instead. You're getting pretty much the same experience for less money. Then if you want to expand, buy the 1st game for more races. Only then should you dive into #3.