First of all if you're not a fan of open world/sandbox games in particular the GTA series and the original godfather game and mafia game then don't bother buying this. But if you are a fan of those sort of game, you'll love this.
The graphics are slightly better than the original but its not a huge improvement, still there is worse out there. The graphics are good but not amazing.
The story is loosely based on the second godfather movie, loosely being the important word there's a lot of 'filler' material in here but its still a lot of fun.
The best thing about this game is being able to recruit men into your family, promote them, increase their stats, customise how they look, buy them new weapons etc. There is 3 different ranks for your men and 7 empty slots, 4 soldiers, 2 capo's and 1 underboss. These are your "made men" not your typical thug. As they are promoted there skills increase (as does their health bar). You can take up to 3 men on a job with you, they all have their own talents. Safe crackers, engineers, demolition(explosive expert), arsonist, bruiser(a heavy), medic etc and each role has its own part to play.
Worst thing about the game is the repetitiveness, every time you do someone a favour its either "kill this guy", "smash this shop up" or "beat this guy up". Surely EA could have thrown in more variety. Although oddly enough taking over the different fronts and crime rings never seems to get boring no matter how many times i do it. My other least favourite thing is the bonuses you unlock for taking command of a crime ring, this was an excellent idea but they messed it up in the smallest and yet most irritating way. One of the bonuses is body armour for yoruself, all of your made men and any thug or 'soldier' you have hired to protect your businesses. Biggest problem with this is that you spend a good 15-20 minutes getting your character to look exactly how you want and they slam this giant black slab onto his chest that is apparently "a bullet proof vest". What kind of Don would war a bullet proof vest outside of his suit? shouldn't the majority of it be hidden underneath his clothes with perhaps the shoulder straps showing? and then if you're lucky enough you'll unlock extra ammo, this appears as a ammo belt that you wear around your waist. So you've spent another 15 minutes changing your characters outfit to make him look "cool" while wearing the body armour and now you've got to do it all again. Surely the body armour could be an "optional" thing for your made men. Well anyway, the other bonuses are fine. cheaper guards for your businesses, extra profit frome drug trade all that sort of junk.
Gameplay - how long will you be playing it for? well last i checked i was 75% complete and i've played it for about 4 hours everyday since i bought it so that's around 16hours. You do the math.
At the end of the day this is a very fun game and a huge improvement on the last godfather game but there is still a lot of room for improvement left.
3 stars because it's fun to play and a great game but it isn't an "amazing" game.