I've yet to play 3 and Shadow Fall (still in shrink wrap) but my experience with Killzone 2 is a far cry from most critics and consumers. I thought it was a huge step backward from the PS2 original, which is wildly underrated. In Killzone 2, the characters are poorly-written and unlikable, the story is contrived, and the gameplay is uninspired and generic. I think the quotation that best sums up my feelings is this: "One of the best looking games ever, but also one of the least ambitious in terms of anything else." I did appreciate that Guerrilla included bots in multiplayer, though. That's something that I wish more FPS games would do.
Hearing that 3 and Shadow Fall moved away from 2 is actually good news for me, since I prefer the black sheep of the franchise: Killzone and Liberation.
