So, let's just get this out of the way. Crysis 3 is beautiful to behold. Great game. In perusing some known websites for reviews, I came across Kevin VO's review on Gamespot. Having been a quarter of the way through the game, I was like, no, no, dude's crazy with that 7.5. Citing easy AI and a general lack of things to do in that big ole world of Crysis 3's. Then I finished the game and fired up Warhead. Well, I must say, Kevin was on the money. The environments in Crysis 3 are absolutely gorgeous and HUGE. After getting about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way into the game, I totally realized what he was talking about. There are little to NO enemies in the game. Not nearly enough for all that SPACE. While playing Warhead, I was being flanked by enemies, they were already in the rooms shooting at the Ceph or waiting for an unfortunate passerby like myself. There were also LOTS of enemies in Warhead. Plenty to keep you busy for a long, long time. if you noticed, in Crysis 3, the enemies seem to spawn at a far distance upon you entering a certain hub or "area". Then they kind of circle in. Whether they are following orders or just wandering around for the easy kill is beyond me, but they always SPAWNED at the other side of the map I was entering. What's that about? Why are there NO enemies already there, talking, hunting, killing Ceph or following orders in Crysis 3? Where are all the bad guys? If I'm going to take my time to explore this HUGE map, where are all the baddies to kill? Heck, I don't care if you go Doom on me and have them spawn out of a closet right next to me, but let me feel like the end is just a headshot away. In Crysis 3, the best part was playing in the train yard. You had NO idea what was swarming through that grass at you, or coming behind you. In the chapter where you are in NY around all the crumbling buildings, I literally walked for a few minutes before I got to shoot at anyone at all. Warhead's AI is a little wonky at times, but the bad guys more than make up for it. They dodge, roll, go for cover, take potshots around corners at you, etc, and there are LOTS of them. In Crysis 3 they want to walk up to you and shake your hand while you put a few bullets in their forehead then act all surprised that you were already there. Plus, how many times do I have to listen to a soldier tell me my cloak isn't going to help me as he takes an explosive tip to the chest? Guess that cloak works after all.

Another thing. Where are all the special CELL ops at? With an organization this large, why are we only fighting regular soldiers? And with all the SPACE, why are there no firefights going on between Ceph and CELL? If you do the secondary missions later on, you get some help fighting the Ceph, but they are far and few between.

The first time going through C3, I played on veteran. Fired it up again on the next hardest difficulty to see if it matters much. I've heard various input, but basically, the exact same thing as what I've said already. I think on the harder difficulty, the bad guys just have higher health and take a few more bullets to put down. I'm also going to make my 2nd playthrough a tad harder by NOT playing with the super overpowered bow. While really nice to have, it is just too overpowered. By the time you use up all your ammo, most of the map is dead and you're just walking around looking at how pretty the game is but NOT really doing anything. At least, nothing fun, like killing bad guys in the game. In Warhead, emergent gameplay was the claim to fame. You HAD to use multiple suit powers throughout a level in order to accomplish it. On harder settings, the game demands you master that suit. On veteran in C3, I felt like Superman battling the attack of the ants. It was too easy. There really are NOT enough bad guys spread throughout the map, and that bow is just too powerful and the ammunition to plentiful. while Warhead gets a little carried away with ammo replenishment opportunities, in C3 it's just ridiculous. I've never felt like I was going to die because of lack of bullets.

Alright then, so we covered nonexistent AI and bad guys, huge lack of firefights between factions (except for some pretty pre-done air battles going on overhead later in the game), a HUGE lack of bad guys in these HUGE environments and the bow is overpowered and the game is a tad bit TOO easy even on veteran. In saying all of that, Crysis 3 is a beauty to behold. It's an amazing game to look at. The first time NY opened up, I was like "DAMMMNNNNNN". The sound design is SUPERB and the weapons are super nice to fire. I especially like getting a hold of a Ceph weapon and having the nice weapon animations play out. Voice acting is top notch. I mean that sincerely too. Great voice acting. If an "expansion" pack were to be released or a general game "patch" comes out in the future, I'm thinking that some of these things might hopefully be addressed. Crysis games, while never reinventing the wheel in gameplay, had some fantastic battles, especially in Warhead. Crysis 3 just seems to be lacking in that department severely, at least, that is my personal opinion. Take it for what it's worth. That and a dollar fifty will buy you a cup of coffee. Oh, one last thing. Bump up the lows in your sound editing. I want to feel my subwoofer boom when I'm in armor mode and I want to hear my grenade BOOM when it goes off at the feet of some unlucky CELL ops. Thanks Crytek. Great game. Some minor tweaks here and there and if anyone does a "re-evalution" of it 6 months down the line, hopefully, much, much better things will be said about it.