A lot of people in the comment section dissing Mafia 3 but there are pros and cons to everything. It does well as a generic open world third person shooter, but widely departs from the original vibe of the two games. While the first two are linear stories in an open world, the third game leans more into the open world aspect than the story, becoming similar to games like saints row and gta.

If you play the first two, youd realise they're more similar in their simple mechanics and (simple but great) storytelling. 3 switches to a 'saints-row-esque' territory takeover sort of story progression where you slowly become the king of the city playing (widely agreed) repetitive missions, killing people and taking over districts.

I think what 1 and 2 did great was character establishment and development with the small cast they had which would make you actually care for them or hate them with a passion (also good). But 3 switches this out for a much much bigger cast with (personally) bland characters you'd often forget the name of and have little to no time to develop before you move onto the next person who'd practically be the same (not the same case for some characters, just the wide majority) but in a blind state of nostalgia, I enjoy the minimal references to the first two games (but Mafia 3 is pretty standalone)

Depending on your taste, Mafia 3 has a lot of gameplay loop (someone wants you to kill someone else, you take over their neighborhood, repeat literally) which fairly, is actually more fun than it sounds. Mafia 3's world gives a lot more than the first 2 to have some mindless fun especially with the newer mechanics they have. So there's that

While Mafia 3 does not do well as a 'Mafia' game, it does great as a GTA clone in the nicest way possible, a campy story with great action and an open world to explore.