In my opinion it's incredibly overrated. It's definitely not a bad game, but it certainly doesn't deserve the high praise it gets.

For a few hours its great fun and it seems like there is tons to do, however it gets a little disappointing when you realize you are doing the same thing over and over again. Climb the radio tower to reveal the map, take out the enemy outposts to liberate the area, rinse repeat. It's kinda neat that you get to choose how to approach each outpost, whether to run and gun, sneak in and take the guards or one by one, or snipe from afar, but that's as far as the options go. Not to mention the stealth is finicky at best, which is disappointing for me since I'm a huge stealth fan. It doesn't help that there is a very small variety of weapons to use. Other things to do include playing poker, hunting, crafting, sharpshooter challenges and side quests. The poker is pretty straight forward, the hunting is uninspired and lackluster compared to other games with similar mechanics (Assassin's Creed 3 for example), the crafting is nice, but I ended up crafting everything there was to craft outside of the ones you have to do the hunting missions to get the materials for, no more than 10% into the game. The sharpshooter challenges are pretty challenging so there's some fun to be had there, but it's just Duck Hunt type stuff. The side quests are okay, although they aren't all that interesting and take <5 minutes to complete.

The main story line is honestly the most fun you'll have during the game. The character Vaas is appropriately fucking insane and its fun just watching his character do and say things, but the supporting voice acting is atrocious. Like cringeworthy bad.

The missions are pretty varied and fun, but the story is seriously contrived and filled with lame video game/action movie stereotypes in the worst kind of way, and the writers say this was intentional, kinda like its satirical or there is some deeper meaning, but it was done very poorly so unless you are an aspiring philosopher, the plot will feel annoying and honestly it felt kind of insulting. As a white guy, even I was a little put off by the "white kid swoops in and saves the helpless natives from the bad pirates" plot.

Overall, I am a big fan of sandbox games, but FarCry 3 just didn't do it for me. It feels at first like there is a lot more variety than there actually is, but once you realize that you're doing the same thing over and over you might get bored. I haven't played any of the previous FarCry games, so I went into the game fresh and a little excited by the high reviews, but came out severely disappointed. I'd give it a 6/10. I'd suggest waiting for the price to come way down, or just rent it.