This is one of the best shooters I have played in my entire life.
When I played this game, the first thing I did was check out the story mode, to see if it improved at all, and I've got to say, TSFP's story is the best one in the series. There is much more interaction than in the previous 2, I felt that I was actually blasting zombies with Jo-Beth Casey, and doing some, sort of weird, espionage with Harry Tipper (He wore the girl's Henchmen uniform as a disguise.) Yes, the story is a lot better than the previous installments, as it isn't "Complete the goals, get the crystal, and get the hell out of there" this time around. There's even cutscenes that come out in the middle of gameplay, instead of there being one at the beginning just so you know what's going on, and then you're thrown into that situation. I don't even really remember a single part that felt that I had no clue what was going on (Except for in the mansion, in which the boss is a giant mutated deer. No idea how the hell it got bigger than the human zombies...)
The next thing I played was the multiplayer mode. Free radical has made a TON of obvious improvements. The roster gives you about 50 characters to choose from just at the beginning of the time you start multiplayer, and some are a little inappropriate (The gingerbread man's taunt, if you pick him, is "Bite my crunchy, brown ass!" Not really a kid's game anymore.). I'm pretty sure that there are about 150-200 characters to play as in the game, as my friend told me. Some of the characters are creepy (A female zombie that was my friend's favorite character scared the crap out of me,) some are weird (I'm pretty sure you can play as that big duck from TS2,) and some are just alternate versions of other characters. (Monkey fans, rejoice! There are 3 or 4 variations of that little rascal!) But the real fun begins when you play the game.
Some of the guns from TS2 return, upgraded (The sniper rifles zoom can actually be adjusted,) and some are completely new, (Eg, a machine gun that can shoot through walls with a zoom similar to MW2's thermal scope.) But my favorite part is how frantic it gets with all these weapons on the battlefield. You may be sniping from a safe spot, shooting headshots right and left, but someone with a grenade launcher may shoot a grenade that richochets off a wall near the entrance of your sniper's heaven and blasts you out of the window, your body falling to the ground, scaring your friend who starts randomly firing his minigun, killing about 10 people just to be blasted in the crotch with a homing rocket launcher. That's happened to me, multiple times in this game.
Another big improvement is the mapmaker, which is now much more than making a map, spawn points, and guns. You can adjust a lot more in the game, including vehicle spawns (Yes, there are vehicles you can use in this game.) One problem with it, though, is that it can be hacked (Good news for hackers, bad news for normal gamers.) My friend's brother hacked one of his own maps, in a part where there's a hallway that you can drive a jeep into to block bots from getting through (Players can easily enter the vehicle, switch to the driver's seat, and get out.) But if you are alone, you can't go too far or just turn around, or the bots magically teleport to your side of the barricade, which is really bad if there are about 15 bots walking in place at your little blockage, so you want to have a friend who will guard it while you go back and take everything in the secret weapon room. Yes, hacks like that are possible, but sometimes, it just adds to the fun/funniness. My brother stupidly turned around to get the weapons, got blasted in the head by the gingerbread man, and got so angry, he through the controller across the room. My friend and I laughed about that for almost 3 days, then we saw "Charlie the Unicorn" on Youtube, and that became old news.
Overall, this game is a must buy for fans of FPSs, fans of the series, and just about anybody reading this review.