Since the dawn of time Mountain Dew and Rockstar energy drink addicts have been at each others throat arguing which is better, 1st person or 3rd person perspective in shooters. Of course both of these groups tend to be dickheads with no basis to their argument. While each perspective has it's merits neither is decidedly better than the other, simply because each game is different anyway. Now even though I already made any argument redundant I need a higher word count so here we go.
The first person perspective places the players camera within the head (or on the headless shoulders) of their in game avatar, while the third person perspective places the perspective places the camera behind the player. Much like how the terms first and third person are used in writing it implies the difference between 'I' and 'Them' when referring to the protagonist. This places you into the boots of you're character, you are Gordon Freeman, you are Doomguy, you are B.J. Blazkowicz, you are Masterchief. But while this method immerses you into the actions of your character and lets you live a power fantasy it can pull you out of the overall story by making you these voiceless blank slates made for self insertion.
Third person shooters separate you from your roided out death machine of a protagonist, letting you peer safely from over their massive shoulders. If you has some kind of a personality disorder that caused you to believe you really were the character in a first person shooter you no longer have that problem, as third person shooters don't make much of an effort to make you personally feel like you could be the character. Initially that doesn't as enticing until you come to the conclusion that it allows for stronger stories with much more flushed out characters and better scripts, the flat and simple "Sir, finishing this fight" becomes "eat shit and die, motherfucker," okay maybe that wasn't the best example, but the characters are actually characters not just blank slates to allow you to embody. These characters carry can usually carry a stronger story being that they are fully realised, and none of this is even considering gameplay yet.
Finally getting around to the gameplay aspects, the first person shooter as stated before puts you in the boots of the camera. Your camera is further forward and you could almost swear you are holding the gun in your mouth, this immediately has some advantages, your skill based accuracy and rang is generally better, simply because you are closer to where you are actually firing from. The advantage is negligible, especially when I found an exploit in a certain triple a third person shooter that lets bullets clip through cover (don't ask I'm not sharing my secrets), but the difference is noticeable at times, otherwise some third person games wouldn't insert first person as a feature. A distinct characteristic of most first person shooters, is speed, especially on on the pc. First person shooters (competitive anyway) are all about fast reflexes, 90 degree turns finishing with a head shot and teabagging. These quick snapshots would only be possible without the limitations of "realistic movement" and are also more necessary with the smaller cone of vision.
Third person shooters are often coverbased. Coverbased meaning you slam your back into a wall and pray to Lord Gaben you don't flanked while taking potshots and using you're magical camera to look around the corner. Naturally this coverbased gameplay is much slower than the break neck speed of a first person shooter, slugging around cover to cover, playing much more defensively, unless you just run around with a shotgun anyway, speed was also effect by the use of complete and realistic(ish) animations when running around. You also have a wider perspective due to the camera being placed back, yes I know the angle is more or less the same the camera is just moved back, but it still gives you a greater sense of vision and spatial awareness, and even some games allow you to rotate your characters vision with out aiming, again aiding in a much more defensive style of gameplay. But these are more a matter of preference rather than a solid pro or con, same goes for first person shooters.
I reiterate this argument is pointless, but just as people will always bitch about an opposing console they will about this. So I will close this with a few simple statements. You can either be the character or you can follow A character, It's irrelevant as long as you enjoy it. You may consider some features of either perspective as advantages or disadvantages, but still irrelevant, if you are playing competitively then your opponents are playing with the same advantages and/or disadvantages as you, all that matters is which are you better at compared to the average. That is all.
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