first played this game when i was like 7 or 8, everytime i got attacked by a bloodsucker i would pause the game and leave it out of fear, now 7/6 years later i take them down with barely any problem lol. 10/10

In terms of narration, story and gameplay it feels like a step up. A lot of issues from Clear Sky have been fixed. Story is being told in a more straight and robust manner.
But after Clear Sky this one is a serious visual downgrade, it instantly feels like a console game, with all downsides: much less objects, geometry is pretty bad in terms of simplicity, a lot of details gone. Probably visually it is even worse than SOC, original game.
You will visit some new locations, meet few characters from previous games, several interesting side quests.

To sum up, I'd say that:
Story - Shadow of Chornobyl.
Visuals/FX/Tech - Clear Sky.
More polished overall - Call of Pripyat.

Still a solid product, which adds more to the universe :)

In my opinion, this is the best Stalker game out of the trilogy. All of the good parts from the previous 2 games are there and the bad ones have been polished. The side quests feel very meaningful and a lot of them will translate into Stalker 2. The game map might feel small but it is very much packed with content. I highly recommend playing it, especially the people who want to jump into Stalker 2 without playing the trilogy.