User blog comment:Tiredman2/What is your weapon of choice?/@comment-4488673-20120824172259/@comment-1388547-20120825162941

The Widow is the queen of sniper rifles in ME2 -- it does the highest damage per shot, and it also holds 12 rounds in reserve instead of 10 like the Mantis. In ME3 it handles pretty much the same way as it did in ME2, but the faster-paced combat makes it less useful because you have to spend a long time reloading after every shot. For my ME3 Infiltrator playthrough, I exercised a lot of spending discipline, and was able to save up enough credits to buy the Black Widow maybe 40% of the way through the game; it's much better-tuned to the new combat system, and felt overpowered even on Insanity up until the final fight.