Borrowed this from a friend and been playing it through the week. The attention to detail is very impressive—the ornamentation of the surroundings, the seemingly functional layout of the levels, Max sweating through his shirts as the levels progress—and it's just a beautiful game, even if you're not engrossed with romanticized squalor and filth.
Not a lot to say about the shooting that hasn't been said already: the cover mechanic is very simplistic and for as much as the game is centered on it, it's disappointing that it wasn't fleshed out a bit more. To use a small example, it would be nice to be able to crouch while in cover. As it is, Max only contorts his body to his hiding space and occasionally it creates some inconvenient shooting angles and some awkward positions as you're moving from one station to another. The diving remains useful, but not abuse-able as in past games. I find myself using it quite a lot—I've seen others mention they feel it's useless, but it's a pick-your-moment sort of thing and while it can very easily get you killed if your timing is wrong or there isn't enough space, it does guarantee you to get some bullet time shots off without getting hit whatsoever—something regular slo-mo can't do. Whether it is-or-isn't "Max Payne" enough doesn't interest me in the slightest. In either case, the checkpoints are typically very forgiving and encourage risky play.
The story is decent enough, and it damn well better be with the absurd number of unskippable cutscenes. I'm dreading a replay—the opening cutscene of Chapter 1 alone is a good 10 minutes before jumping to the action. I could knitpick the lame Tony Scott-esque stylization of the cutscenes and overuse of visual effects, but I won't, and I appreciate them going head-first with the homage in some small way.
All in all, for a game that boils down to, as Sho Nuff said, a little bit of pew pew, followed by a little bit of story, ad nauseam, it's inexplicably fun. What it lacks in gameplay variety, it makes up with a wide assortment of interesting locations, unique shoot-out situations and endlessly satisfying violence.