Another "both are good" opinion coming up. Based on the PC version of both games, naturally.

Mechanically, SR3 is the superior game. Unfortunately, it takes not taking itself too seriously too seriously, if that makes sense. It is still fun, but the funnier moments lack punctuation because the world is so batshit crazy anyway. SR2 is mechanically rough and a shitty port, but I would still probably rate it higher than SR3 because it throws the occasional joke into the script rather than the other way around.

EDIT: Co-op's not bad on SR3, by the way. Also, most of the DLC is crap.

'Not bad'? SR3 has one of the best implemented co-op campaigns I have seen on the PC, well for a game that's not coop focused anyway.

I play very little online co-op, so yeah, I'll gladly go with your assessment.

Beat the complete edition on PS3.
It was a shallow experience and a lil mediocre, but was still pretty fun none the less.
No one should go into it expecting GTA or Sleeping Dogs story development.
Just turn your brain off and enjoy the mayhem.

Couldn't care less. The correct term is couldn't care less. "Could care less" just makes no sense whatsoever.

I've played an hour of Saints Row 2...loved it but wouldn't work well on the PC I had at the time and 3 to 5 hours in Saints Row 3 and love it just as much.

SR is a COMEDY - Making fun of Mafia sandbox games.

There's a large amount of content if you add all of the DLC. Even though the game is normally expensive Summer, Christmas and New Years sales on both Steam and Amazon have offered the complete SR3 collection for fiftteen or less (that's how I got it) so wait a month for Steam's Summer Sale.

Game is well worth it, IMO. My favorite gang sandbox game because it doesn't take itself seriously and therefor not half as depressing as the GTA series.

I sorta had SR 2 running on my ten year old PC hosting windows XP
I think the problem people were experiencing was, as a port, it wasn't optimized well and their equipment had not been updated to the point of handling it yet. They were also trying to play it while Win 7 was working out bugs and people were learning about the 'Run as Admin' and 'Compatbility' options.

I'm pretty sure THQ had XP in mind which Is why I was able to run it better on worse and older equipment. (I still had to uninstall though because, let's face it, I was running a 2.4 ghz SSE1 single core AMD and only 1 gig RAM.

Hmmm, I now tried SR2 also on Win7... and I still see no issues so far (without the fan patch), just as I didn't in Win8. I wonder if they have later fixed the game, but people are still commenting on how it used to have problems earlier? Or what should I be seeing now?

I presume I should be hit by the "speed bug", as my CPU speed is 2.30GHz, which is certainly different from XBox360's 3.20GHz, right?

I recall people saying driving is very hard or near impossible on the PC version as it goes too fast, but to me driving feels about the same as in, say, the PC version of GTA Vice City. Is there some certain way to tell if I have a problem with the game or not?

Maybe I'll still try the fan patch, just to see if it changes anything.

QUESTION: Am I supposed to install both the "Powertools" and the "Gentlemen of the Row" modifications to fix all that could be possibly broken? Reading the FAQ, I understood that:

- Powertools is for the speed problem, and it lets you change the gamespeed manually so that the potential speed bug goes away.

- "Gentlemen of the Row" fixes various other issues, but not the speed problem?

I enjoyed the hell out of SR3, but aside from the buggy port SR2 felt like it had more love poured into it.
There are ton of little details in 2 that weren't included in 3.
Probably a poor example would be comparing the environment interactivity in Deus Ex to Human Revolution.
Everything is prettier but less interactive.
I'd install the Gentlemen Of The Row patch/mod and start from there if you can.

Start with 2. It's great fun. SR3 is good too but there is a real feeling of "what can we take out to make into DLC next?"and even when you have the complete edition I doubt it really comes together after all the chopping up. Regardless you should have fun with both.

Well I've been playing the game.

It's beyond stupid that people would criticize SR3 for taking the comedy too far or something. How do you take the game further than a confessional that you can pay to use that magically eliminates all your notoriety, with money so plentiful it's like fucking toilet paper and the only penalty for dying is a slightly inconvenient detour to a police or hospital, that's not even getting to the really ludicrous stuff like driving around in a indestructible ATV that can magically blow up anything it touches, acting as an over reactive bodyguard to a celebrity and throwing bloodthirsty zombie fans into things that grind them into meat while the surrounding paparazzi and police don't seem to mind, and then somehow attaining an apache helicopter out of thin air and shooting down bad guys that chase your homies heading around doing drug deals.

What's more, the game was never good. GTA4 is a much more polished game with infinitely more depth, not to mention a lot less fewer bugs, and a mature story that knows not to over use it's humor or empowering gameplay moments. The only thing Saints Row has over GTA is it's coop, which I've been playing with a friend. The fact that it's a mindless bland game with no depth is alleviated at least by being able to play it with someone.

I pretty much couldn't stand SR2 due to its almost manic swings in tone. I loved the hell out of the stupid stuff, but pretty much had that enjoyment ruined by the massive swing to hardcore drama. This would not have been so bad if the drama was well done, but I found it incredibly trite, over scripted and incredibly forced. So half the game I loved, the other half I mostly hated. The Controls were a bit on the clunky side as well, but once you adjusted to them they were playable. I still have not finished this one as I just can't play it for any longer than short bursts before I'm over it again. Its good for an "in between" game (Something you play in between other titles you are more interested in dedicating large doses of your play time into).

Saints Row the Third went for pure balls to the wall over the top stupidity and I loved it. It is the second most stupid fun game I have played "this generation". If you want substance, look elsewhere. If you want face hurting lol hard from some of the tightest interactive stupidity ever made then you will love it.