But not completely. This game has a split personality, one, it has a storyline that is controlled by the AI and it wastes much of your time playing cut scenes that are inlaid in the battle.
In other words, you are restricted by the AI and have to do it the way it wants or you die, this aspect completely sucks and you cannot skip the cut scenes, but if they were to be removed, it would shorten the game by a full hour, which means you could actually complete the entire game in a couple of hours.
Oh, and nearly half of the cut scenes are littered with drug induced bull shit.

However, the other personality that lives, is the open world aspect of the game, it is simply the best open world to date, they kicked ass in developing it, had Farcry made this the soul of the game and did away with the cut scenes, it would be arguably the best game in a decade.

The open world is full of pirates that have seized the island like a cancer, your job is to clear out the roughly 30 encampments.
This is a kick, you have options of various weapons, I like the silenced sniper rifle, flame thrower, flare gun which lights forest fires at a distance, and the rocket launcher.
Each encampment has an alarm system to signal for help, if you can sneak in and disable it, you only need to kill 5 or so pirates to take the site, if you fail and they signal for help, you can expect a shit load of enemies coming in waves, on foot and gun mounted jap Jeeps.

I have played the game through several times, and am now sick of the AI to the extent I just start the game over and clear the island, takes about a day of play, then reset and do it again, completely avoiding the story line completely.

The islands have much to offer, from diving on sunken wrecks from WWII, to ancient caves full of treasure (money).
You can climb the highest mountains and snag a hang glider and fly the entire island and the gliders are numerous, one or two on every peak.
And if you don't like hiking, you can always find an abandoned car or truck with a full tank, there are also boats everywhere, so you can easily traverse the terrain for hours and not see the same scene.
I can't express enough how much quality work went into the development of the scenery, they never repeat the same scene twice.

Oh, and it does have glitches, I have yet been able to throw a grenade or the handy Molotov cocktail, for some reason it just won't work.

So with that said, wait for the price to fall, and you won't regret the experience, but as a game for replay value? I say get borderlands.
For those that don't know what open world is, you can continually move throughout the entire game without loading new maps, it's just continuous play.

Yes, it does look this good.

I have to disagree with you, i didnt think it sucked at all, and the throwing works fine.

I got the black box version, which means that I got it for free basicly.

Its awesome gameplay and except for the uber american storyline (american in a bad way i.e reality show/emotional/crying) I love the game. Its rpg/fps/racing game all in one. What I don't like is all the drama, crying. Give me badass Scwarchnegger anyday instead of this pussy who cries everytime he talks to a woman.

I also dont like the minigames and cutscenes that ruins the immersion. I would have like to see a more horror survival/conspiracy storyline like Farcry 1 instead of surfer americano emotional overload storyline that has farcry 3 has. But other than that I love the game in itself with the exception of the storyline. I pretend the pirates are communist with their red colors and that I'm the guy from the movie red scorpion instead of the shitty storyline that is in the game :P Then again I didnt pay for it so I can't complain.

Hehe then we are doing the same thing :) yeah I too hate scripted combat, I want to attack the encampment my way.

I wount bother playing through the storyline, and will consider the game finished once I clear all towers/encampments like you do. It is one of the best FPS this year though. Not that it means much :P

haha yeah, the dialogue is pure cheese and the characters are simple. That voice actor for Vaas Montenegro is pretty good though.

Another thing that is ruining the game for me is the X-ray vision that you for some unkown reason get, as if having a minimap with satallite tracking system isnt enough. It generally makes the game way too easy, and I'm playing at hardest difficulty. The enemy AI is actually pretty good though, they don't all just charge you or clump together like in other games.

MS, I see they made an interesting change a month or so ago to the game.
Once you complete the game, under options, scroll to the bottom the list and you'll see "Reset Outposts".
This resets the game, not the towers, and you don't have to mess with the story line, just kill, kill, kill, clear the outposts, with all your updates and parachute available as well.
This is about the only thing about the game I liked anyway, so it was nice to see the change.

Hey, I also discovered it's my cordless mouse that interferes with grenades and Molotov, a corded mouse works fine, but I like my cordless far better,
so I do without the grenades and stick to the sniper rifle and flame thrower, as well as the flare gun.

Hehe cool, yeah liberating those areas were the best part of the game, felt like a Nicaraguan Contra fighter. The storyline was soso, preferred the Farcry 1 storyline instead with the bioengineering.

Btw they are releasing a new game called Blood Dragon. It is farcry 3 map but with new facilities, weapons and enemies. The storyline seems much better than the vanilla version of farcry 3. 

I really hope we get to fight a T-Rex that shoots purple lazer beams out of its eyes 

I agree.
Is it on the same map, or engine? if released on the same map, that would be really cool, I love the islands and the detail they put into them.
Give me a heads up when it's released.

Blood Dragon is out btw 

It is very good, 80-90's style of manly
There are so many references you will laugh your ass off

A great game but all the purple lights will make nauseous after a while 

It is great, the only thing I miss if the crafting system and lvl system from Farcry 3 vanilla.