Rating: 
Summary: A DM's essential. A gamer's suppliment
Review: For anyone playing D&D, and particulary 3E, the core rulebooks (conveniently numbered on each cover) are the PH, the DMG, and the Monster Manual. The monster manual is filled with all sorts of evils to fight during adventures, from the basic woodsey animals to ancient dragons. It's also a fantasic reference to use for creating new creatures. But for the player who has no interest in being a DM, it's not necessary. It's a hefty price-tag book for something that the average player would only crack open for post-game reference to quelch that "What WAS that thing?!?" curiosity. For a DM, it's essential. For the player, save the money to get books that can help flesh out your characters first, and put this on your "non-essential, but nifty" book list to buy.
Rating:
Summary: Its a Must Have for DM's: You'll be nowhere without it
Review: You need this book to be able to play a fun campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. If all you had where human NPC's from the Dungeon Master's Guide where would you be? You'd be bored. This book is full of over 500 monsters with their statistics, their social behavior, their combat behavior, and information on whether they'd be likely to attack for no reason, or if they enjoy hunting subjects. Its a good book with all the information you need on the monsters they have. However, they could have fit even more monsters by making it bigger. I just hope they come out with a Monster Manual II sometime soon.
Rating: 
Summary: How could any AD&D fanatic NOT be crazy about this one!?
Review: I am from the old school of AD&D, having started playing back in the early 1980's. The 1st Edition Monster Manual from back then rates as a COLORING BOOK, compared to this new edition! The color illustrations are PHENOMINAL, the text - comprehensive and enjoyable to read, the book's overall quality - SUPERB! My mouth was watering as I flipped through the pages. I was careful not to bring it to work with me today, so not to get completely absorbed in fantasy and not in my work. If you love AD&D and don't have this book yet - trust me - GET IT! BRAVO, you writers, llustrators, and publishers that brought us this one!!!
Rating:
Summary: Another Excellent Book
Review: I remember when I first got the 2nd edition Monster Manual and I was in for a treat. Jump foward to today, and I got that smae feeling when I opened this one up. The artwork is great! Most of the creatures from second edition made a comeback in 3rd edition. The descriptions of the monsters are great and well defined. The only problem I have with the book is that they got rid of the ecology and habits section of each monster that told you how the monster lived and reacted to certain everyday life things. But thats a small adjustment and if anything, you can just go back and look in your 2nd edition book for that stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: It could have more monsters and info...
Review: This is the third book of rules for D&D 3ed. It is the last complement for creating adventures suggested in the Dungeon Master Manual (core rulebook II).
I think most of the creatures are too powerful, so you can't use them in low level adventures. The number of monsters is Ok, but more could be added.
The art is not as impressive as I expected, it could be better, sometimes is comic style (of the low-budget ones), or very impressive (minotaur), but in general lacks of uniformity (I think is the right word).
The information in general is good.
I suggest this book just as a start, then you can create your own creatures based on those included in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Necessary, Could have been better
Review: This book contains a host of monsters/critters, templates for creating things like werewolves out of creatures (or player characters, for that matter >:-) and more mundane creatures (like rodents). The statistical information, along with the feats are clear and easy to follow. A full set of average stats are presented for all of the creatures and it is easy to break them down to enhance them with classes.All in all worthwhile and even necessary if you are a Dungeon Master. The presentation, however, could use a little work. It is sometimes difficult to tell what pictures are associated with which monsters as the information just kind of flows through the book. The role-playing aspects of what is mentioned is also significantly reduced. There is very little information on the society or ecology of most of the creatures, nor on their allegiances/habbits (for instance, it is not mentioned that Beblith hunt Tanari). While I understand the reasoning, it would have been an excellent addition and I would have gladly given it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Great illustrations, cramped layout
Review: This edition of the monster manual surprised me, it was actually the smallest book out of the 3 core rulebooks for 3rd edition, and while it actually contains more monsters than previous editions, they were literally crammed in, making a hard to follow and sometimes unclear layout. This downside, however was easily shadowed by the wonderful illustrations which truly show the capabilities of WotC's artists. Also the selection of monsters was better this time around, some completely obscure monsters were left out this time, in favor of more easily used monsters. However, some may miss the lack of a dracolich entry and the ever-so-cute gem dragons. In conclusion I would say this book was a definite improvement over previous editions, but the layout did bring it down from its potential as a truly amazing book. 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Almost great.........
Review: This book has its good points and bad points. Good points- The number of monsters-over 500!!! There are so many here. The templates are wonderful. Liches, Fiends, Half Dragons, Vampires: its all great! The artwork is incredible. All the pictures are very well done. Bad points- After looking at some of the older monster manuals, I noticed that this one seems to have a lack of information about each monster. Some things could have been more clear too.... Overall, if you plan to be a dnd dungeon master, buy this book. However, you WILL need the players handbook and DM's guide to use it to its full potential.
Rating:
Summary: A great book full of ideas
Review: The "Monster Manual" is a great addition to the D&D game tradition. There are enough creatures (about 500) in this book to make any DM happy. The new format is easy to use and understand. My favorite section was the part on templates; this is probably the best idea to come out of 3E D&D. All the creatures are non-campaign specific with the possible exception of one or two entries. For the most part, the artwork in this book is very good with a few rather silly looking pictures. The only thing that I find disappointing is the lack of history on each monster (those of you who have played 2E AD&D know what I am talking about); I really enjoyed the wealth of information that earlier AD&D monster entries provided. All in all, this is a must have for any player of 3E D&D.
Rating:
Summary: Big time improvment
Review: I love the new third ed. For D&D. I was so scared of it at 1st but the system is well fixed, not perfect but I like it better. This book will help you make adventures and traps for your PCs. It does this well. Not much more to say except I don't like the inclusion of modern weapons in the book, but that's because I like White Wolf Games for modern settings. This is a personal bais. Otherwise the book is good.
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