Holy hell. Where to begin? Playing Dead Space 1-3 is like watching a delicious cake being sat on in slow motion. Dead Space 3's only redeeming aspect was being able to coop the whole thing in a night with a friend and laugh at how bad it was. Survival? Nah everything uses universal ammo. Horror? We made 6-barrel rocket launchers with mods that stopped self damage/friendly fire and shot at our feet the entire game since 99% of the enemies are melee. Plot? Couldn't hear it over all the explosions.

This feels like a single player action horror title similar to the previous games in the series that was hijacked mid-development and turned into a co-op shooter. The co-op campaign implementation is awkwardly handled. In cutscenes player 2's presence is often simply ignored. That and the weapon crafting mechanics seem at odds with other aspects of the game's design, like the restrictive survival horror inventory system.

became an action game, lost the plot

Dead Space 3 gameplay pivots to raw action and is more functional than I would have believed. That's about all the positives I have to say. The story is still a hamfisted mess of half-baked real-life metaphors, the "characters" are flattened to the point of clichéd archetype, the enemy design doesn't work for this type of game, the micro-transactions are ever-present, and co-op is shoved down your throat more than that necromorph that shoves it's tentacle down your throat.

It's fine

The final entry in the Dead Space franchise, DS3 represents Visceral's hardest lean towards the action genre, focusing less on the horror element than the first two entries. Despite this, the game has the best gameplay of the three, and the addition of co-operative play makes the title a real treat.