Review: 'Mafia 3' Squanders One of the Year's Best Stories on Stale Gameplay

It turns out Mafia III is the game I worried it might be, just not in the ways I expected. It's hard to see at first, given how long it takes to unpack its slow pyramidal crime climb, or how well and powerfully told its mob-revenge story is. It has many charms, in other words. But as a game (for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One), it's mired in monotony, and more than a few play-futzing bugs. A stirring cinematic opening that's smartly delivered documentary-style from the vantage of people reflecting on what happened initially obscures this.