Have heard bad reviews. Is it really that bad? Mainly key board control and not using mouse, can you use a game pad? Just checking before i purchase. TIA

It's not bad, that's for sure. While the game doesn't live up to BS1, 2 or later 5 in terms of graphics and utilises somewhat quirky controls as well as irritating quick time events, the writing is as good as in the first two games. It's best played on gamepad, which solves most of control issues. Well, ubiquitous puzzles that involve pushing boxes will still remain, but heck, that's still not the only part of the game!

I'm not sure what's been wrong with the reviews here recently, but I learned not to trust them entirely. BS3 has some decent score on Metacritic and GOG's version is identical to the original, so have no worries.

It's a game that was born for consoles (unlike the porting of Broken Sword 2 for PlayStation 1, which somehow still handles better than this), so the control scheme is built on that.
The plot is not at all bad, you still have your folk legends and whatnot but in this one British legends mix in a weird way with Egyptian and Middle Eastern lore and looks just weird to me. Also, to be honest, in my opinion there are quite a few background stories that don't work so well and dead times.
Summing up, while it can be enjoyable to play it (if you don't mind the new-ageish casserole of mythologies) it's not up to the classic episodes of the series.

I somehow managed to finish it with a keyboard. The control takes some time to get used to, and probably still quirky after that, but workable. Story is not that bad to me, while puzzles can be a little bit on the easy side, maybe? And quite a lot of box moving ones, if that bothers you. Personally, I was glad to see the changes in this game: action elements, 3d graphics and the sense of exploring the 3D environment (you don't get free angle camera though). For me, BS3 offers fresher experience than BS2 as a sequel.