History YMMV / MaxPayne

* SignatureScene: Three notable ones in ''3'': the UFE raid in the favela, Max and Neves' confrontation at the Imperial Palace Hotel, and Max preparing to execute a badly wounded Becker at the airport.

** Max Payne ends up killing the son of New Jersey mob boss on impulse which sets into motion the events of ''Max Payne 3''. Come 2014, Creator/KeanuReeves experiences a CareerResurrection when he stars in ''Film/JohnWick'' where he plays a character who goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to kill the son of a New Jersey mob boss very deliberately after he steals his car and kills his dog.

** Max Payne ends up killing the son of New Jersey mob boss on impulse which sets into motion the events of ''Max Payne 3''. Come 2014, Creator/KeanuReeves experiences a CareerResurection when he stars in ''Film/JohnWick'' where he plays a character who goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to kill the son of a New Jersey mob boss very deliberately after he steals his car and kills his dog.

* IdiotPlot:
** In the first game, [[spoiler:Woden's plan to bring down Horne's criminal enterprise was to mail evidence on the Valkyr project to a single district attorney, instead of mailing it to multiple media and legal bodies, and once Horne has Michelle Payne assassinated Woden never reaches out to anyone else. He claims to Max "[our] hands are tied" against Horne, and his meaning turns out to be that she has a sex tape of him with a prostitute and is using it to blackmail him into silence. But considering the connections the Inner Circle supposedly has, this shouldn't even be an issue; if they can get Max off the hook for all his charges, surely they can make that tape go away.]] To put it another way: the entire plot of the first game only happens because Alfred Woden is a stupid pervert.
** In the second game [[spoiler: Woden decides not to reveal to Max that Vladimir Lem is a member of the Circle, or indeed that he's the one trying to kill Max and Woden, until near the end of the game. This is despite the fact Max was his ally in the first game and did everything Woden asked.]] He also makes no apparent efforts to broker peace with [[spoiler: Vlad]] even though he admits to Max he is dying of cancer and so all the bloodshed is pointless. He even attempts to [[spoiler: get Mona to kill Max to cover The Circle up, even though Max has never leaked Woden's secrets and [[WhatAnIdiot doing so actually leads to Mona getting shot and his death directly afterwards]]]]. It would appear [[spoiler: Woden]] was even self-aware that he was holding the IdiotBall because he actually comes out of hiding to apologize when this bizarre plan goes awry and leaves him completely unprotected with [[spoiler: Vlad]] bearing down on him.
** In 3, [[spoiler: the Brancos are being murdered by the brother, Victor, for voter sympathy while bribing the police and other politicians with blood money from an organ trafficking ring.]] The thing is that Max had the potential to be a thorn in the side of this before the game even began [[spoiler: when a cruise ship he's on in Panama got raided by pirates. He kills the pirates but shrugs off Passos and Marcelo being suspicious about a bag full of money.]] And even during the plot, there was no reason to [[spoiler: leave Rodrigo alone during an attack on his compound, which gets him killed by the very police he called in when they're alone and the tape of it stolen.]] And when he finally finds Fabiana, [[spoiler: he barges in through a front door despite having sighted enemies within through the windows, gets ambushed and forced to watch Fabiana (and later Marcelo) die horribly for his stupidity.]] Max's only excuse for any of this? [[TheAlcoholic Being drunk and dazed for a good majority of the plot]] [[DeathSeeker while horribly depressed enough to consistently dive into a fight without thinking whatsoever.]]

* SoOkayItsAverage: It's hardly the worst game adaptation out there, but the major appeal of the game was getting to recreate popular HeroicBloodshed and Hollywood action movie tropes like BulletTime and LeapAndFire, so putting these well-known film tropes into another action movie just made it... another action movie.

** First game: [[BigBad Nicole Horne]] is the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive ice-cold CEO]] of Aesir Corporation, using her resources and connections to perpetuate her atrocities. A former member of the Inner Circle who headed up Project Valhalla, Horne oversaw the creation of [[FantasticDrug Valkyr]], using innocent people as test subjects and driving them insane, notably siccing three of the drugged up victims onto the Payne household to murder Michelle Payne and her [[WouldHurtAChild infant daughter]] after Michelle [[HeKnowsTooMuch accidentally learned of the project]]--later mocking Max over their deaths and forcing him to relive their murders simply for cruelty. Continuing to experiment on tortured captives with Valkyr years after, Horne begins marketing Valkyr into the drug community of New York, using [[TheDon Angelo Punchinello]] as a figurehead to spread Valkyr far and wide, uncaring of the thousands of lives it claimed. Horne used Punchinello to carry out a variety of assassinations and crimes in her name, murdering the man when she lost use of him and later enacting "Operation Dead Eyes" to cover her tracks, entailing the wholesale slaughter of each and every one of her former partners, employees, and test subjects in Project Valhalla, as well as the entirety of the Inner Circle.

* UncannyValley: Notable in the original game, [[https://static.3drealms.com/media/uploads/2015/10/27/max-payne-7.jpg all the characters lack facial animations and their faces are nothing but textures]].[[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cV_73-339VU/UuddL4h1fgI/AAAAAAAAnVQ/us0dKfFLQFE/s1600/Max_Payne_%2528PC%2529_Replay_03.jpg Max, for example]], [[http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/13/139788/2204269-Max-Paynes-face.jpg his face textures may change depending on the player's activities]] [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F-A0-VHr1dY/Uue2h6Tkh2I/AAAAAAAAncU/FOJKuri6C40/s1600/Max_Payne_(PC)_Replay_14a.jpg even when he gets killed]]. Taken UpToEleven in the third installment where [[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SiuvL0Y4VWw/maxresdefault.jpg Old School!Max finally has facial animations]], but [[EyesAlwaysShut his eyes barely open]] just like if he's suffering from an allergic reaction or... [[MemeticMutation literal constipation]].

* MagnificentBastard:
** [[AffablyEvil Mona Sax]], the self-described "EvilTwin" of mafia bride Lisa Punchinello, is an intelligent [[ProfessionalKiller hitwoman]] who forms a swift bond to Max Payne after drugging him to keep him from rampaging. [[VideoGame/MaxPayne2TheFallOfMaxPayne Returning in the conflict between Alfred Woden and Vladimir Lem]], Lisa has been working for Woden to "clean house," eliminating those on Vlad's side and almost claiming his life. Manipulating a MobWar in her favor to stymie Vlad, Mona uses Max to do her work for her, with only her growing love for him preventing her from killing him in the end.
** ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne2TheFallOfMaxPayne The Fall of Max Payne]]'': [[AffablyEvil Vladimir "Vlad" Lem]], debuting as an [[BigBadFriend ally]] in the first game, is a friendly [[TheMafiya Russian mobster]], quick with a joke and a smile and refers to everyone as the "dearest of all [his] friends". In truth, Vlad is a member of the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy Inner Circle]] who was manipulating Max from the start. Using his own professional assassin crew, the Cleaners, Vlad has the rest of the Inner Circle steadily eliminated while playing the NYPD and Max to do his work for him, even planning on having Max killed by Vlad's lover Detective Winterson, whose blind son Vlad is [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes truly loving and affectionate with]]. When exposed by his former mentor, Alfred Woden, Vlad plans to manipulate Max and his hitwoman lover Mona Sax into killing one another while never losing his pleasant smile or friendliness.

** ''Max Payne 3'':

** [[AffablyEvil Mona Sax]], the self-described "EvilTwin" of mafia bride Lisa Punchinello, is an intelligent [[ProfessionalKiller hitwoman]] who forms a swift bond to Max Payne after drugging him to keep him from rampaging. Returning in the conflict between Alfred Woden and Vladimir Lem, Lisa has been working for Woden to "clean house," eliminating those on Vlad's side and almost claiming his life. Manipulating a MobWar in her favor to stymie Vlad, Mona uses Max to do her work for her, with only her growing love for him preventing her from killing him in the end.
** ''The Fall of Max Payne'': [[AffablyEvil Vladimir "Vlad" Lem]], debuting as an [[BigBadFriend ally]] in the first game, is a friendly [[TheMafiya Russian mobster]], quick with a joke and a smile and refers to everyone as the "dearest of all [his] friends". In truth, Vlad is a member of the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy Inner Circle]] who was manipulating Max from the start. Using his own professional assassin crew, the Cleaners, Vlad has the rest of the Inner Circle steadily eliminated while playing the NYPD and Max to do his work for him, even planning on having Max killed by Vlad's lover Detective Winterson, whose blind son Vlad is [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes truly loving and affectionate with]]. When exposed by his former mentor, Alfred Woden, Vlad plans to manipulate Max and his hitwoman lover Mona Sax into killing one another while never losing his pleasant smile or friendliness.

** Kaufman, the near-mythical Mafia hitman that mooks warn you about through much of ''2'''s first act. This is a game that at least attempts at realism, so he reacts to hand grenades thrown at his feet just like everyone else. To be fair he can take a lot more bullets than his mooks. Although he does seem to have the same health as the commandos later, suggesting it's a bullet proof vest rather than sheer badass.

** Max's constipated expression in the first game. Also, in the first game, the mooks' screaming (AWWWW! OWAAHH! HUWOOOOOH!)

** Max's famous constipated expression mentioned directly above, that a lot of fans have love for.

** Many felt this way about Creator/MarkWahlberg as Max Payne as he didn't capture the charm of Sam Lake's Max or the hardboiled detective look of Timothy Gibbs. Some felt that Max's voice actor James [=McCaffrey=] should have played him here, especially since he already has a cameo in the film as an FBI agent.

** And if you disregard the [[SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames decent]] [[VideoGame/ThePunisher game]] it got several years ago (or the one by Deep Silver that came after), the series as a whole could pass for a pretty solid ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' video game due to the almost [[{{Expy}} identical]] traits Max shares with Frank, its edgy noir tone, and brutal violence (especially in the third game).

* ThatOneAchievement: The third game has the achievement "The Shadows Rushed Me", which requires you to unlock and complete New York Minute Hardcore mode. The whole game must be completed, while timed, in one sitting, and dying or otherwise failing sends you straight back to Chapter 1.

* MagnificentBastard: From ''Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne'': [[AffablyEvil Vladimir "Vlad" Lem]], debuting as an [[BigBadFriend ally]] in the first game, is a friendly [[TheMafiya Russian mobster]], quick with a joke and a smile and refers to everyone as the "dearest of all [his] friends". In truth, Vlad is a member of the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy Inner Circle]] who was manipulating Max from the start. Using his own professional assassin crew, the Cleaners, Vlad has the rest of the Inner Circle steadily eliminated while playing the NYPD and Max to do his work for him, even planning on having Max killed by Vlad's lover Detective Winterson, whose blind son Vlad is [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes truly loving and affectionate with]]. When exposed by his former mentor, Alfred Woden, Vlad plans to manipulate Max and his hitwoman lover Mona Sax into killing one another while never losing his pleasant smile or friendliness.

* EightPointEight: Gametrailers received some flack for giving Max Payne 3 a 7.6.
* EndingFatigue: Between the awesome music and the wide-open level design, the shootout in the airport terminal in the last level of ''3'' is the perfect way to segue into the end of the game. Too bad you need to spend a good ten minutes more simply getting to the final boss. And even after the boss, you need to go through a vehicle section, and ''then'' you finally get the last cutscene.

* EvenBetterSequel: ''Max Payne 2'' took everything the first game did and improved upon it, with a physics engine for a more interactive environment, a more complex story and characters, better graphics, and better gameplay. The main criticism of the game was it's short length; otherwise it's only failing was poor sales due to being marketed as "A Film Noir Love Story", which brought the series to an end for a time until ''3'' came out nine years later.

* HomegrownHero: After all, ''III'' is about everyone's favorite [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCityCops New York cop]] moving his 'practices' to São Paulo, Brazil.

* PortingDisaster:
** The Steam rerelease of the original game is a bit of a mess. Just getting it to run needs several tweaks and downloads, due to the game's age, including a fan-made patch to make the audio work, because without that patch the audio often cuts out. There's also a GameBreakingBug tied to the game's frame rate with Vinnie Gognitti's pathing as he runs from Max that results in him not going where he's supposed to go. This means Vinnie isn't there for in-gameplay cutscenes, and eventually, one such instance causes the game to hang, forcing the player to either use an additional program to lock the game to 60 FPS or to use a cheat to skip the level. In addition, the game will crash if the player is using any Ryzen CPU from the 3000 series onwards.
** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 version is another faulty release, rarely running at a stable framerate to the point of making some sections almost unplayable.
** In a surprising turn of events, the Android and iOS releases avert this by being some of the best ports of the game, running at a higher resolution and frame rate than any of the console ports and not requiring numerous fan patches like the original PC version, the only major issues with these versions of the game are poor touch controls and the game not mapping inputs for [=PS4=] controllers properly.

* ThatOneLevel:
** The two nightmare levels in the first ''Max Payne''. Each of them start off cool and creepy, and then tack on an infuriating maze. The first maze has you running down featureless hallways endlessly until you take the right combination of turns (or you can blow grenades to ease your orientation). The second has you running around a maze of bloodtrails in otherwise featureless blackness. Every time you reach a dead end, a scream plays that exactly mirrors your own. It's even worse on the console, owing to the imprecise controller movement and use of checkpoints in the Playstation 2 version instead of quick saves like in the PC and Xbox versions.
** The long EscortMission near the end of the second act in 2. Playing as Mona, you'll have to rush to various vantage points and snipe the enemies before they kill Max. Unfortunately, not only are you under a lot of pressure, but there aren't many Painkillers in this chapter, and Mona is likely to not have much ammo or Painkillers left by this point, given that you don't start with many of either when you switch to her.
** The end of the yacht level in 3, where you try to enter the bridge. The section has little covert or room to dodge and maneuver, enemies spawn and attack from awkward angles, and the scattered furniture blocks your shots, while your enemies can still hit you fine. Expect to die multiple times here.

* DemonicSpiders: Any grenade launcher armed mook. They will one-hit you.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: One criticism of the second game is that it's notably shorter than the first. While it has about the same number of chapters as the first game, most of the chapters are significantly shorter.

* MagnificentBastard: From ''Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne'': [[AffablyEvil Vladimir "Vlad" Lem]], debuting as an [[BigBadFriend ally]] in the first game, is a friendly [[TheMafiya Russian mobster]], quick with a joke and a smile and refers to everyone as the "dearest of all [his] friends". In truth, Vlad is a member of the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy Inner Circle]] who was manipulating Max from the start. Using his own professional assassin crew, the Cleaners, Vlad has the rest of the Inner Circle steadily eliminated while playing the NYPD and Max to do his work for him, even planning on having Max killed by Vlad's lover Detective Winterson, whose blind son Vlad is [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes truly loving and affectionate with]]. When exposed by his former mentor, Alfred Woden, Vlad plans to manipulate Max and his hitwoman lover Mona Sax into killing one another while never losing his pleasant smile or friendliness.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: While still not exactly a cakewalk, ''2'' makes a number of subtle gameplay changes that make it easier than the first game. Killing several enemies quickly will slow down Bullet-Time further while making Max even faster. He also has a spinning animation he performs while reloading in Bullet-Time that allows him to reload weapons far more quickly. Bullet-Time also regenerates far more quickly than in the first game, and Max can also stay on the ground after a Shootdodge by continuing to fire his weapons. Shootdodging also no longer drains Bullet-Time.

* BestLevelEver:
** [[BrokenBase As divisive as the third game is]], most players really enjoyed Chapters IV and VIII, mainly because they're the flashback levels that take place entirely in New Jersey and capture the tone of the first two games.
** For those who don't find it to be ThatOneLevel, the airport level in the third game is also seen as a highlight for players, especially the lobby shootout.

* BrokenBase: The changes made by ''Max Payne 3'' are divisive to say the least.
** The addition of a [[TakeCover cover mechanic]] to the game has been criticized by some for making to game too similar to other contemporary third-person shooters.
** There's also the abandonment of the stylistic underpinnings of the series, such as the histrionic, pseudo-poetic monologuing, interactive environmental elements and the all important mythological/religious/pop-cultural symbolic subtext which gave the original games their richness.
** Another problem with the third game is the plot. The second game resolved all the loose ends and finished the story on a bittersweet note, with Max reminiscing, "I had a dream about my wife. She was dead, but it was alright." The third game [[HappyEndingOverride overrides it all]], throwing Max into a new set of troubles and turning him into a depressed alcoholic for no reason.
** As well as the replacement of the first two games' graphic novel-style cutscenes with more traditional cutscenes with stylistic, TV-screen style static cuts (though the New Jersey levels invoke the earlier style). The fact that many of them can't be skipped makes it worse. There was also Max's [[BaldOfAwesome change in haircut]] and facial hair.
** A smaller one is Max's [[TheOtherDarrin constantly changing appearance]], especially with those who consider Sam Lake's [[NarmCharm constipated grimace]] the definitive look for Max. Some refuse to play the sequels because of the lack of Sam Lake's face in them.
** The game's extremely scripted nature can also get on the nerves, as instead of always being in control of Max for most of a level, there are plenty of cutscenes that place the player in certain positions in shootouts, leaving little room for player freedom to decide how to tackle encounters when they're put in a slow-motion shooting section.

* ContestedSequel: The third game has gotten this hard. Either it's a worthy addition to the series or a betrayal of everything that made it special.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Some fans reject ''3'' as part of the series due to the lack of characters from the first two games, the shift in tone, different writers, different graphical and soundtrack style, etc.

* GoodBadBugs: In ''3'' it's possible to edge up on a corner, aim at foes around it and shoot them through whatever the wall is made of as long as the reticle is red and the weapon is an adequate distance from the wall. This makes 70% percent of gun fights trivially easy, not to mention making the cover system largely redundant.
* HarsherInHindsight: During his brief sojourn through the Favela, Max happens upon a small drug laboratory and kills the gang members defending/working in it. Just before leaving, he takes time out of his very urgent mission to set fire to the building using a fireworks stockpile, in order to destroy the laboratory. This being in a favela, a single fire, no matter how minor, can spiral hopelessly out of control in mere minutes and kill hundreds of people, displacing thousands more. [[http://observers.france24.com/content/20120907-brazil-sao-paulo-resident-films-video-sonia-ribeiro-favela-burns-fire-blaze Such a fire happened on the very year of the game's release in its very setting]].

* HollywoodPudgy: Max's weight in the third game is brought up quite a lot in spite of the fact that he has only a mild paunch. This is mostly because it's very noticeable to players who are accustomed to Max's sleek frame in previous games.

* InNameOnly: An accusation frequently leveled at ''3''. Max loses his IconicOutfit while also now sporting a shaved head and beard, abandons New York for Brazil, and tonally the game is far more ''Film/ManOnFire'' than ''Film/{{The Maltese Falcon|1941}}''. The writing and characters (particularly the Branco family) are largely ripped right out of the [[StrawCharacter satirical mockeries]] of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto''. Gameplay changes, such as [[TakeCover a cover system]] and [[LimitedLoadout only being able to carry 3 weapons at a time]] further drive a wedge between ''3'' and the first two games. It also doesn't help that ''3'' was developed entirely by Rockstar, with only limited input by Remedy. Cue many saying OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight.

** In the third game, about three-quarters of [=DeMarco's=] lines are variations on "You killed my son!" Eventually, it's a bit hard to take him seriously as a hardened crime boss.
** For some, Max himself throughout the third game. His drunk self stumbling through the game and fucking most things up, combined with his extremely blunt metaphors and almost ridiculously cynical amounts of snark and bitterness ([[UpToEleven even compared to the previous games]]) almost make him a caricature of his former self.
** For players who are familiar with Portuguese, the Portuguese dialogue of the Brazilian characters in the third game may come across as this due to the ridiculously excessive swearing and some strange accents that otherwise don't sound naturally Brazilian.

* ScrappyMechanic:
** How some people feel about the addition of [[TakeCover cover]] in the third game. It's a rudimentary system that doesn't even let you round corners without getting out of cover. It also does not mesh well with the bullet-time mechanic. Instead of dancing through a free-wheeling ballet of bullets, you're watching Max emerge from cover in slow motion to potshot at mooks also crouching behind cover.
** The third also removes the ability to skip the cutscenes, due to many of them being used to hide loading sequences (though only in the console release, as the PC version was eventually patched with the ability to skip several cutscenes, although many cannot be skipped for reasons unknown). Arcade mode actually has an "Old School Mode" which prevents the player from using the cover system or weapon zoom. However, enemies can still use the cover system without incident and their AI is unaltered in any way to benefit this style of play.
** The constant, eye-aching visual effects that make the game painful to watch for most players and impossible to play for epileptics. Arcade Mode has an option to remove the effect from bullet time, and it makes the game significantly easier to play.
** The Last Chance mechanic is a concept that can work as proven by the likes of ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' and ''VideoGame/GuildWarsTwo'', but its implementation in 3 leaves a lot to be desired. When put into the "Downed" state Max cannot move or reload, so that if he can't hit the enemy due to them being behind cover or his gun being empty, the player has no choice but to wait until he dies, which can be agonizing due to the bullet time the mode operates in. What's more, if Max goes into the state while behind cover, he has almost no chance to fire over his cover and will instead empty his clip into it rather than the foe the player is targeting. Another problem is that the mechanic defers to hitting the foe who downed Max, forcing the player to aim only at that one enemy. This is even if it would be easier to hit another, easier target that would glean the same result.
** The third game removes the ability for Max to use throwable weapons, such as grenades or Molotovs. Not only does this limit your tactical options to kill enemies (especially with the third game's TakeCover mechanics), ''enemies still use them against you'', putting you at an unfair disadvantage. Making this change even more frustrating is that throwable weapons are usable by players in multiplayer mode, leading many to wonder just why this was removed for single-player and ''only'' single-player.

* SequelDifficultySpike: ''3'' goes back to the NintendoHard nature of the first game with enemies often having more health than Max. The "In The Zone" BulletTime mechanics of the second game are gone now, and painkillers are scarce. Enemy bullets in real-time also travel much faster than in the first two games, encouraging the use of cover. Overall the game heavily encourages the new TakeCover and blindfiring systems, and trying to shootdodge through every fight like in the first two games will just get you riddled with bullets.

** The airport terminal from 3. With its entire environment massively spaced out by design and small outlets of cover, as well as the enemies throughout armed with powerful weapons as well as pinpoint accuracy, the battle is a painful slog from one side of the terminal to the other. The layout contradicts and outright forbids the kind of frenetic, two-fisted gunplay which the series is based on, and on higher difficulties the best, neigh, ''only'' way of beating the section is by abusing the "Shooting-through-Walls" glitch while engaging foes at huge distances. This is made tragic by the fact that the game designers decided to place the game's trailer theme, TEARS by HEALTH over this section.
** The stadium as well, in Chapter III, which has a modicum of DifficultySpike to it. Particularly the section after Passos gives you the headset and sends you on your way. The situation you're dumped into is really unfair (the enemies are all on the other side of the gate, which can impede your ability to shoot them, and your best cover option frankly sucks) and it can be difficult to get a bead on where all the enemies are coming from (at least two come up from the bottom of the bleachers and can catch you off guard if you're focusing on the four or five foes in front of you). Pushing forward is made problematic because more enemies appear when you think you've cleared a path for yourself and then you've gone too far to take advantage of any cover. You might try to walk down the bleachers to the lowest level and then work your way back up on the other side but even then you'll probably find yourself pinned down.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The reason Max isn't in New York in the third game is that he had to skip town after killing the son of crime lord Anthony [=DeMarco=] to keep him from attacking a woman. [=DeMarco=] put a price on Max's head large enough that every criminal in the state is out to kill him, forcing Max to take up his guns again for the first time in years. His lone ally in this, with everyone from the first two games dead, is Raul, his old buddy from the police academy Max hasn't seen in years. This plot fits the tone and style of the first two games and could have made a good sequel on its own, but it's relegated to a series of FlashBack chapters whose only purpose is to [[HowWeGotHere explain why he's now a bodyguard in South America]].
* TooBleakStoppedCaring: ''3'' can suffer from this. The shallow and materialistic Brancos, not helped by Max himself noting he doesn't care for their attitudes or lifestyle, the villains of the game being ''worse'' than what's come before, and Max's angst after ''two'' failed attempts to get his life back together already, can result in a player simply not caring about the story.

** ''Max Payne 3'' definitely counts in this regard. Rockstar's [=RAGE=] was put to use on a much more linear game that the studio typically makes and they really went for it in terms of detail of environments and body physics. The latter, in particular, results in plenty of unpredictable death moves for both enemies and max.

* WhatAnIdiot: In the third game, Max bumbles through the plot in a drunken haze and constantly makes stupid decisions that result in more violence and more people getting killed.
* TheWoobie: [[FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling Giovanna]]. She's nearly killed multiple times after going to a party with her sister. After she and Marcelo try to rescue her from Serrano's thugs, [[spoiler:he kills Fabiana right in front of her]], and Giovanna later sees [[spoiler:[[KillItWithFire Marcelo being firenecklaced]]]]. When she tries to help out Max later on, she's nearly killed several times ''again'' by the Crachá Preto. Luckily, she manages to [[EarnYourHappyEnding Earn Her Happy Ending]] and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere leaves the city unharmed with Passos]], [[AnyoneCanDie unlike a majority of the other characters]].
** Fabiana herself could count. She may be a spoiled, gold digging, rich girl, but ''nobody'' deserves the things that happen to her.

* HomegrownHero: After all, ''III'' is about everyone's favorite [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCityCops New York cop]] moving his 'practices' to Sao Paolo, Brazil.

*** This is most noticeable with the enemies, who are supossed to be tough criminals and [[SociopathicSoldier psycho mercenaries]], but sometimes speak and taunt like nerdy boys playing a FPS game online.
*** On top of that, there's the Brazilian Portuguese dub for the first game made by fans which achieved memetic status after Brazilian youtuber [=FunkyBlackCat=] did a playthrough of the game, as all lines end up being said with extra ham and corny flavor, even more so than the original dub, making the entire game sound like a saturday morning cartoon.

** Played straight and averted in the third game; [[spoiler: Becker and his cohort]] aren't too tough themselves, the former being more of a mere survival gauntlet and the latter being that and a PuzzleBoss, but a couple of times throughout the game, Max encounters [[HeavilyArmoredMook armored foes]] with heavy weapons who are nigh impossible to kill quickly without taking insane amounts of risks. This is especially the worst at the [[spoiler: Imperial Palace]], where [[TimedMission you have about twenty seconds to kill a single one of these guys]] or [[NintendoHard die and get sent to the last checkpoint of the whole section]]; many players get stuck here[[note]]Though it becomes significantly easier if you bring the [[{{BFG}} M82A1]], which can pierce said enemy's helmet with a single shot.[[/note]].

* ContestedSequel: The third game has gotten this hard. Either it's a worthy addition to the series or a betrayal of everything that made said series special.

** In 3, [[spoiler: the Brancos are being murdered by the brother, Victor, for voter sympathy while bribing the police and other politicians with blood money from an organ trafficking ring.]] The thing is that Max had the potential to be a thorn in the side of this before the game even began [[spoiler: when a cruise ship he's on in Panama got raided by pirates looking for said blood money. He kills the pirates but shrugs off Passos and Marcelo being suspicious about a bag full of money.]] And even during the plot, there was no reason to [[spoiler: leave Rodrigo alone during an attack on his compound, which gets him killed by the very police he called in when they're alone and the tape of it stolen.]] And when he finally finds Fabiana, [[spoiler: he barges in through a front door despite having sighted enemies within through the windows, gets ambushed and forced to watch Fabiana (and later Marcelo) die horribly for his stupidity.]] Max's only excuse for any of this? [[TheAlcoholic Being drunk and dazed for a good majority of the plot]] [[DeathSeeker while horribly depressed enough to consistently dive into a fight without thinking whatsoever.]]

** [[Creator/RemedyEntertainment Sam Lake]]'s [[labelnote:spoiler]] A Finnish writer and Max Payne's face model.[[/labelnote]] constipated grimace in the original game. Also, [[AscendedMeme the said grimace is also referenced]] in VideoGame/AlanWake as an EasterEgg while watching "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjY1WDz8TpI The Harry Garret Show]]" at the 2:39 mark.

* {{Wangst}}: Most of Max's inner monologues delve into this in ''3''. On the one hand, over the years, he's developed a completely justified level of SurvivorGuilt. He may be able to [[OneManArmy singlehandedly kill hundreds of mooks]] (which, as a former law enforcer, isn't something he'd be proud of to begin with), but not before said mooks have killed everyone he's either cared about or tasked to protect. On the other, he ''just won't shut up about it'', taking every opportunity to mention how much he sucks. In the first two games, he avoided this by snarking and occasionally making light of his situation, but here, his snarks have an overly-caustic undercurrent that only makes it worse. This is actually lampshaded as far as the second game, during Vlad's VillainousBreakdown.

* TheUntwist: The reveal of [[spoiler:B.B. being the bad guy]] is hardly a surprise to anyone who has played the games, but the film having [[spoiler: the death of Max's family]] only be revealed near the end baffled both fans of the game and movie goers alike, with several critics blasting it as a poor attempt to cover a cliched motivation. Even ignoring this, the film outright ''deliberately announces'' the twist not even 15 minutes beforehand! [[spoiler:Hensley's secretary calls him on the phone as Max is interrogating someone, namedrops him in said call, and afterwards Hensley proceeds to send in hordes of corrupt cops after Max - yet the film still attempts to play up him revealing himself as the BigBad to Max as if it ''were not'' revealed beforehand.]] Even if this were intended to be an InternalReveal, it is presented as if the viewer were not aware of the twist either.

*** This is most noticeable with the enemies, who are supossed to be tough criminals and [[PsychoSoldier psycho mercenaries]], but sometimes speak and taunt like nerdy boys playing a FPS game online.

** A majority of the antagonists from the third game fall under here. [[spoiler:Serrano]] and Anthony [=DeMarco=] are never [[TheUnfought fought onscreen]], and both of them possibly suffer a KarmaHoudini. Milo Rego, Neves' [[TheDragon Dragon]], is killed in a cutscene where you have to PressXToNotDie four times. Neves himself is a CutsceneBoss who [[spoiler:is abruptly shot in the head by Passos after [[VillainBall he talks to Max for too long instead of just shooting him]]]]. Even [[spoiler:Victor Branco is never fought; all you have to do is blow up his private jet with a grenade launcher after you've eradicated the rest of the enemies]].

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: ''3'' can suffer from this. The shallow and materialistic Brancos, not helped by Max himself noting he doesn't care for their attitudes or lifestyle, the villains of the game being ''worse'' than what's come before, and Max's angst after ''two'' failed attempts to get his life back together already, can result in a player simply not caring about the story.