>>62261480to be fair, as far as both characterization and gameplay goes, it's way above both of its predecessors
Solid and Raiden kinda get dragged along their missions, there's little personal investment up to the point of a sudden last minute reveal of the big bad behind everything being deeply related to them on some level (but not for long enough to really establish any working bond aside from what goes into the sequels)
meanwhile John has both a more pressing professional/patriotic investment (Cold War, world legitimately on brink of nuclear holocaust ) and personal one (Boss was his mentor and surrogate mother in a way)
then on the gameplay layer you have stuff like camo, survival elements, smoother gunplay and more developed CQC takedown system
