Blasphemy! I can only assume that you're one of those people who think Max Payne is strictly a particular art direction, a common misunderstanding of hong kong cinema and film noir. Max Payne 3 is definitely a Max Payne game, crafted by people who understand the character and the genres the previous games borrow elements from. It ticks all the boxes:
- The failed hero
- Corruption
- Gangsters
- Damsels in distress
- Fatalism
- Getting in way over your head
- The underbelly of the beast
- Pessimism
- Cynicism

Max Payne 2 wrapped up all story arcs and characters from Max Payne 1. There was nowhere else to go with that story. Max Payne 3 is a perfect "10 years later" kind of story that handles both the genre tropes and references to the previous with extreme love and care.

That said, you are right about Hitman: Absolution. Mechanically and visually it is an excellent Hitman game. The problem is that the level design and AI completely ruins the Hitman experience. It is like being given a beautiful sports car, but you are only allowed to drive it around a dull dirt track. The wasted potential, the obnoxious story and characters, the flat immature jokes, the level design that necessitates a poor man's Splinter Cell kind of stealth play.

Hitman has always been best and most loved when it allows you to succeed just by confidently impersonating someone you're not. Absolution completely failed to balance the social stealth aspect of the game, forcing the player to duck behind sofas and dodge around corners in plain sight to reset the AI suspicion meter. It looks completely insane and makes no real world sense. All aspects, even the mechanically sound parts, suffer irrecoverably because of this.

Am not saying that Max Payne 3 didn't played like Max Payne. Just that for me it was such an extreme departure from the first two games, it was a jarring experience. Something made even more evident when you play the flashback chapter. I would have loved if the game was an immediate continuation of Max Payne 2. Saying that Max Payne 2 concluded all the stories initiated by Max Payne 1 and 2 is also a stretch. There is tons of stuff that a third game could have deal on by continuing the story. It would also had made for a tight trilogy. They chose not only not to do that, but go out of their way to put Max Payne into a story that is out of the Elite Squad with a Hong Kong Action Movie Feel.

the game is not a big challenge to finished except for "plutonium runs loose" With the most wary guards in the world !

Just recently finished replaying Hitman 2 and finally remembered how much I hate the Japanese staged mission.

I still think Hitman 2 is much easier than Hitman 1...
And I still love Silent Assassin's more than any other hitman game.