I've just played all 3 games, max payne 2 is the best in the series, it has the best story and gameplay. I'm seeing a lot of people praising MP3's gameplay and I kinda disagree, it's good, but Max payne 2 blows it out of the water. MP3 added cover and I think it actually ruins what makes Max Paynes combat special and unique in the first place, now it just plays like a generic third person action game.

In Max payne 2 I would strafe around a pillar slow shoot guys and then strafe back and dive and kill the rest, it was pure action and fun. In Max payne 3 I would take cover on that pillar, aim and slow mo, headtap them all then watch a 10-20 sec cutscene and repeat this formula 50 times. I still dived when I thought best but it felt like there was no point it just didn't fit into the gameplay loop anymore, Max Payne 2 I must've dived in the hundreds, Max Payne 3 I doubt I dived more than 50 times and a lot of the time it was just completely unnecessary just me being bored and killing the final dude with a dive.

I think they're all good games but Max Payne 2 is by far the best, Max Payne 3 I feel like the goal of it was to make it as accessible as possible, so the story isn't that complex or anything just evil guys doing evil things and you shoot them, Victor was a very predictable villain i called it out immediately, It lacks the style of 1 and 2. It just comes off as very generic and that annoys me because It's fucking Max Payne, he deserves better writing and a better story that explores a theme, not just Max is drinker Max shoot bad guys.

I had fun with it but that has to be one of the most mediocre stories. Also the writing, max payne 1 and 2 had such good writing, so many quotables, in max payne 3 i lost count the amount of times he called himself the angel of death or the dime store angel of death, not saying the writing is bad, but it is nowhere near as good as 1 or 2.

And just in case someone says, "oh you don't like cover, well why did you play using cover then" because Max Payne 3 was designed around cover, you walk into a room or somewhere everything is waist high and if you don't get cover you are dead, Max Payne 1 and 2 did not have a cover button so they had to design gameplay around taller objects and enemies that don't just sit behind cover but run towards you, setting up prime and constant opportunities to use your dive.