The story is good, the action is nice. But the open world is pretty much useless.

Mafia 1 and Mafia 2 are masterpieces, unlike Mafia 3

It's a cool game! Very interesting story, good graphics, smooth gameplay and amazing soundtrack. But you should only buy it if it's on sale (80% or more).


Mafia: Definite Edition is a GTA-style sandbox game set in the 1930s. The best parts of the game are:
A very interesting main story, beautiful graphics, decent gameplay, vintage cars and an amazing soundtrack.

Now... for the not so good observations:

The game is very short - it took me about 11 hours to finish the main story on the hardest difficulty, plus 8 hours to get all the remaining achievements. For the full price this game is currently listed for, it's simply not worth buying it to get only 19 hours.

The game has a decent sized map and very good driving gameplay, but all of this is wasted by the lack of side missions or minor activities. You can't upgrade your character, weapons, or cars. Plus, there's no economy in the game, no money. What's the point of having an amazing map if the player isn't encouraged to explore it?

There are some side activities, like Races and Taxi Missions, but they're in a separate mode called "Free Roam", which (in my opinion) makes no sense. The whole point of a side mission in a sandbox is to give the player a break from the main story, encouraging them to seek out extra secondary rewards that will help them in the main quest (money, weapons, vehicles, allies), Mafia has none of that.

Mafia is all about the story, that is, "Story Mode". The only thing worth playing in "Free Roam" mode is to get the achievements.

On top of all that, I also experienced a bug. While playing, I noticed a very annoying clicking/popping sound. I searched for "Mafia Clicking/Popping" on YouTube and was able to fix it by making a small change to the Windows Registry.

But, you want to know if the game is worth it, right? My answer is YES! If you manage to buy it on sale (80% or more), you will get approximately 10 hours of fun (20 for achievement hunters).