What a shame for such a once great franchise to fall so badly into mediocrity. The PC version is like stepping back in time to 1997 when all FPS games were played on the keyboard, that is the amount of control you feel you have while playing with a mouse and keyboard. This crappy console port not only plays badly, it looks worse than the original, has a tacked on cover system that was not needed or wanted and just like every other FPS console game has regenerative health system which i'm now sure the only point of is that it lengthens the playtime because you are stuck behind a crate for 60% of the game. Played for a few hours, uninstalled and reflected how good the original game was and what a pile of crap this was. Once again, bad or lazy development has killed this game and possibly the franchise for me. Such a shame.… Expand

Another worthless console shooter identical to every other title. Cover system, 2-weapon limit and health regeneration. Tired of picking up games and realizing it plays like an expansion to any other console-port shooter. Remember when different games were actually different? I do.

Don't waste your time. Better games than this with better stories and better gameplay were released 10 years ago. There's no atmosphere here, no interesting characters, no interesting gameplay. It's like ordering a pizza in 1999, getting it delivered in 2001, and eating it in 2011. You can probably swallow it down somehow and trudge through, but I can't promise you won't regret it. They likely took the old engine, through together some levels in a few minutes, and made the textures blurry to make it look 'better.' Go play the original (again, if need be), but don't support this garbage.… Expand

Hey, I just met you and this is crazy but F.E.A.R 3 is a terrible **** game and never ever buy it maybe seriously, never. The franchise has been ruined to the point where the combination of action and horror elements is clearly dysfunctional. I started the game, having enjoyed the first title many, many years ago and never having played the sequel, curious to see how the title has evolved throughout the years. I was disturbed, not by the same fake ghosts that pop out each corner in FEAR 3, but by how badly of a job WB or whatever since Vivendi studios do not take part in the production of the games anymore, have done in the third installment. I remember when playing the first game, the atmosphere had this genuinely unique and creepy vibe to it. FEAR 3 dumbed it all down to a mindless CoD clone, with the cheaper jump scares than ever, but this time done so awkwardly its not scary, but more cringey.

gameplay - 6
visuals - 7
story - 1… Expand

The PC version of FEAR3 is an abortion. Low resolution textures and a sickening field of view that can't be changed immediately stand out. Aside from that, there are hitmarkers in single player - someone should be fired. This is a COD clone through and through, devoid of anything that made the first game a classic. The idea of horror in this game is a can falling over...or someone throwing a cup out of a cell peep hole.

The only positive I can pull out of thin air is that overall, the graphics are very good. The atmosphere is nice and thick despite the textures breaking immersion and the fact that windows are not transparent, they appear to be self illuminated in most instances.

Someone figured out that the game runs at 30fps, and each frame is shown twice to give the false effect of 60fps. Unacceptable. Might as well have stabbed myself in the face and let Warner Brothers urinate in the wound.

Forget that this is FEAR, forget any idea of horror, forget immersion...actually just forget the entire game. Go play COD instead. That's all this is.… Expand

An unimaginative, unrewarding grind. Not made by the developers of the first two, but by the people who ported the first one to consoles. And it shows.

At their best, the first two FEAR games were masterpieces of atmospheric tension ratcheted up through stunning graphics, brutal-but-fluid combat, and immersive level design. At its best, FEAR 3 is a jumbled ball of textbook action and horror cliches slathered in super-reflective blood textures and washed-out lighting, hinting at some "scary" story about something or other as it stumbles from one flat, murky combat sequence to the next. This game feels like it was designed by people who had been very briefly told about, but never allowed to play, the first two games, and plays like the various people designing the story, combat mechanics, art, level design, achievements system (so annoying), and "scare sequences" never actually met or even spoke. I guess someone thought they had a really profitable shooter clone on their hands they could churn out for big bucks if they slapped the name FEAR on there. I feel like a chump for having helped prove them right -- and for assuming that the makers of a FEAR game would have wanted to appeal to the people who bought and loved the first two games.… Expand

This game gets a 2, because that's the level I got to before I fell asleep playing on the fearless difficulty. The game is so mindnumbingly bland that I can't even think about it without getting drowsy again.

The original was great. Good clean scares that make you jump. The game play was well done and complex. After that the games have gone down hill. The ending in F.E.A.R. 2 was bad but F.E.A.R. 3 is worse.

A console game, that doesn't translate to a pc game well, it has multiple achievements, that only serve as a distraction, and adds nothing to the game, and extremely repetitive game-play, that suffers from a very poor cover system and health that regenerates after a few seconds, the only good point I can think of about this game is that the AI is marginally better than other FPS games. Overall I uninstalled this game, as I was too bored to carry on, and it was using up precious hard drive space.… Expand

If you're looking for the same hair-raising horror game driven by an immersive and interesting story that the previous two titles had, best look somewhere else. As an avid fan of the F.E.A.R. series, I was fairly disappointed with this latest installment. Despite boasting that the game had the expertise of John Carpenter and Steve Niles used in development, it remains largely uninteresting, incredibly short, and hardly frightening for a good majority of the game. An obvious console port, F.E.A.R. 3 at its best is another generic shooter placed in a bloody box with paranormal wrapping. Much of the paranormal happenings that were commonplace in the first and second titles are no longer present, and the ones that are there are hardly anything terrifying. The single player campaign suffers the same problem as the majority of FPS title produced these days by being too short, easily forgettable, and un-note worthy as a whole. I do like that Point Man makes a return as main character, with the psychic visage of his brother Fettel acting as a companion of sorts. The level-up based progression system implemented is enjoyable too, though I found myself many times performing differing actions for the sake of gaining experience rather than progressing through as I normally would in a FPS game, which takes away from the immersion some. The cover system, while easy to use, is largely unnecessary

I bought this game because I thought what I was buying was another F.E.A.R. title. But instead, I got a mediocre, run-of-the-mill FPS game with little in common to its namesake, dressed up and propped up by its multiplayer co-op fanfare that cheapen the feel of what I thought was going to be a great story driven horror title. Good to rent, but not to buy.… Expand

If you play this game it feels like it has been made by people who haven't even seen fear 1 and 2... Fear 2 was already worse than 1 but this... This looks, feels and plays like a $10 budget game. It has no atmosphere, it has no story, it has no tutorial even. It has nothing. It's the biggest waste of money you can ever go for. Avoid it at all costs. Fear 1 had 9-10 from me, Fear 2 had 7-8, this gets 4.… Expand

Wow how can we play a game that has botched mouse over sensitivity... do they not QA titles any more. First Fear was ground breaking, 2nd was missing its charm and features - @Xanifur agreed this is just money grabbing nonsense.

-smc

El juego es monótono hasta decir basta, la historia incoherente, los niveles son una linea recta, no da absolutamente nada de miedo ni susto. Y el hermano con superpoderes se supone que solo lo ves tu, entonces ¿cómo le disparan los marines contra los que juegas si solo le ves tú?

This is F.E.A.R. meets Modern Warfare 2 and Mass Effect 2. I was looking forward to a new story line, better graphics, with similar game mechanics. I was not expecting a cover based, health regenerating game. I'm not sure I can even suck it up to finish this one. I may go back to playing the Perseus Mandate for a 3rd time. I can understand wanting to make changes from game to game, but why turn FEAR into a copy of MW2 or ME2? Could they game developers not think of an original concept? this game should be call Modern Warfare: The Alma Project.… Expand

F.E.A.R. 3 is a really big disappointment.I've never played 1 and 2.I played 3 and I was expecting to fear.I waited for it but I didn't fear.There's nothing to fear.It was just an ordinary FPS.I bored when I played.

Complete consolized garbage. A slap in the face to those customers who made the FEAR franchise a success., I hope the development team feels some sort of shame.

I'm not sure what great lengths one has to go to make the control system of a PC shooter feel unwieldy, but this game as achieved it.

Textures are terrible.

Not as good as F.E.A.R. 2, nowhere near as good as the original F.E.A.R. The game gets points for outstanding enemy A.I. and some originality in the co-op department. I also like the reduced ammo capacity, which forces you to be a little more careful where you shoot, but why only two guns? What was wrong with three?

The graphics are not as good as F.E.A.R. 2. There's absolutely no excuse for that, even for it being a console port, but Day 1 could redeem themselves somewhat if they follow Crytek's lead and release a DX11 texture pack in the near future.

The keyboard controls are unnatural and the mouse control is unresponsive. The cover system is an unnecessary addition. There was nothing wrong with how it worked in F.E.A.R. 2.

What happened to the story?! What happened to exploring every room to find snippets of lore and backstory hidden in files or voice mails?

Most importantly, what happened to the scare? The game will make you jump at times because oh no a light bulb burst, etc. But it won't frighten you like the first two games did. This is the biggest disappointment. Day 1 simply can't bring the scare the way Monolith did.

Right now it's 4/10. If Day 1 gives us some patches to smooth out the mouse controls, and if they release a DX11 texture pack, I'll bump it up to 7.… Expand

From a fan of the original and a PC gamer this is quite a saddening release. Fear 2 didn't do the franchise justice but it didn't completely butcher it like this release did. I couldn't care less about graphics, but the entire atmosphere is gone, the gameplay is mediocre at best and it feels like more of a console port than any PC release I have played so far. If you liked fear at all, stay the hell away from this title.… Expand

Broken multiplayer. Way too much motion blur. The shooting feels dated, (it is the fear engine). Also, CONSOLE PORT, no dedicated servers. Hence the broken multiplayer. I can't connect to anybody and I have port forwarded for this game. The only game where I have not been able to connect to anybody. GG.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I loved the first title, It had exciting shootouts, great graphics and excellent AI. The second one was average, having nothing really new to say, but as a a hardcore shooter, it was even better. Now we have this disaster made by Day 1 Studios, people who just ported the first F.E.A.R. on the consoles. The story is nonexistent. If F.E.A.R. 2 at least had some sort of story, Here you just run from Point A to Point B, shooting everything on your way, two(the bridge and the market) levels were made just to extend four hour(!) campaign as they have absolutely no other purpose. The same goes for the entire campaign. It's boring, very predictable and uninteresting. Many things just don't make any sense at all. Why Becket is so important to anyone? How capturing him will lead someone to Alma? How do you suddenly teleport from the airport terminal to some vault? Where the hell is the U.S. Military? The game is just so full of plot holes. Graphics are horrible: low quality textures, poor lighting, old animations. As for models, well, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher bay,released in 2004 , had more detailed models than this abomination( You can check that , if you want).Despite all this, F.E.A.R. 3 runs badly as it is unoptimized. But more importantly, guns (except for the rifle) behave badly and shootouts are boring. As for scares, well, F.E.A.R. series wasn't really scary to begin with, but the horror elements did add unique and interesting atmosphere. Here this atmosphere is gone.The game doesn't even try to scare you. Playing as Fettel is fun for some time, but then you realize, that for the most part it's the same as playing Pointman, only without slow-motion. The co-op seems to be normal, but there are other co-op shooters, much better than this and multiplayer may satisfy someone for a short time. Overall, a very boring Co-op shooter and not worthy of called F.E.A.R.… Expand

This is simply bad game. Nothing else. Terrible GFX and music, stupid gameplay, only AI is good.

What the heck????!!!! i bought this game in the understanding that it would surpase the previous fear 1 and 2 titles.(or at least match it)...and all i got was a poor console port????!!!! so angry right now.

After playing "FEAR 3" I was very, VERY disappointed. As a fan of the orignal FEAR I always loved the adrenaline rush and the tense moments of the game. It always sorta wanted me to...continue on the game on and on. "FEAR 3" is a different picture here. Except for the decent graphics everything has changed, BIG TIME. Wtf happened to all the med packs and armor? The various weapons? The smart AI enemies? The player-involving story? The scary environments?… Collapse

Potential spoilers ahead.

The original developers of fear delivered a masterpiece in horror FPS, one day studios did the port and have pushed this out. On reflection their title was apt, it does feel like this was written in a day.
It uses all the current popular media and horror tropes and recycles as many ideas from the previous games (and games from other developers) it creates a straight line game with decent amount of flair.
It's fun and they have mixed the game up so it doesn't get too repetitive (more on this later) that is actually pretty fun to run and gun with.
So why the low score?
Well it has some pretty nasty problems, the game feels like it's built around the setpieces with the story rewritten to "sort of" fit, it also fields like they got 70% the way though developing the game and either ran out of money and pushed it out the door or just simply gave up caring as it lurches from level to level with severe themeing changes, early on the coherence is kept by some fun cutscenes but even these are sidelined leaving the latter part of the game feeling a confusing and incoherent mess. (such as it is)
The game was clearly written for co-op play then about 80% the way though the game it "introduces" something that has been a core gameplay mechanic for one of the players since the beginning and this was purely to kill off an NPC who's sole existence in this game was just as an excuse to build a level around it (see narrative trauma above) Then there is a "twist" to the co-op that makes no sense either, the game encourages you to work together for big kills but yet has a competition element to that completely sets the ending meaning that while you are supposed to be working together you are actually competing so better off working alone and screwing the other guy over... kind of whacked for a co-op game no?? (great idea guys, which committee dreamt up having a co-op game where you encourage players NOT to work together..)

OK so we have a fun but inconstant game, that looks quite nice and plays reasonably well, am I being harsh... Well personally my biggest beef with the game is just the fact that it's offensively short, by which I mean after some technical setup problems my friend and I completed the game in under 3.5 hours and we weren't even rushing! I have played DLC which is longer.
Also the last level makes no sense what so ever...… Expand

F.3.A.R is abysmal. It feels like Killzone on a PC and has gone the other side of the spectrum from the original. With no good features remaining from the previous two titles and just making the bad bits worse plus including an unacceptable completion time of 4 hours. F.3.A.R is a fitting end to a dying series, a good story but sadly was extremely poorly executed.

I was severely disappointed with this installment in the series. The first thing that was horribly done was the difficulty. Any encounter with a mech suit indefinitely resulted in several reloads. You died extremely easily and quickly even on the easiest difficulty setting. Not to mention the unnecessarily large amount of cultists thrown at you all at once. I also constantly ran out of ammo and found myself spending more time looking for another weapon from cover than actually shooting. The enemies were annoyingly precise and apparently have skulls made of titanium as head shots were performed without results. The pace was extremely slow and the screen effects didn't in any shape or form make the atmosphere unsettling, they simply made it difficult to see. The cover system...don't even get me started. Where did this crappy idea come from? Most of the time you find yourself behind cover with a hovering electric grenade behind you killing you without indication. Also, why was the mystery of Point Man's appearance blown right at the beginning? I'm about 4 hours in only signed up with Metacritic to warn both fans of the Fear franchise and of FPS games that this will most likely piss you off the whole way through. I'm with many of the other reviewers on this one....I simply can't continue playing this terrible game.… Expand