Can i run it

graphics is pretty basic. mw3 will run in LOWEST 720p. gta 4 NO, MP3 NO. Frames will be disappointing. upgrade the gpu. gtx 560 is small and can be had for 120-180

Gotta agree with akbisw, The 520 were basically made for motherboards without integrated graphics. If your considering upgrading, a 560 would be great but check your power supply unit first to make sure it is strong enough to support it, If not we could always suggest something else.

i agree with both of them.

Believe it or not your i3 is a good duo core CPU and it will handle all those games but your GT 520 is more for watching videos and surfing the net and pic.

The GTX 560 and the HD 6850 are The top GPU's that will run with your CPU and of course the new 7850. nVidia hasn't come out with the 660 yet. Like said above your PSU should be 450w or bigger.

Let us know what you are going to do and we will help you find a good card and PSU if you need to upgrade it as well. Good luck to you.

Wrong! I have the same specs, I3 2nd generation with geforce 520m. It's an Asus Laptop, and I can run Modern Warfare 3 with everything on High, resolution 1366 x 768 at 50-60 fps. It's certainly not a demanding game.
Batman Arkam City, same res. everything on high but physX disabled runs at 40 fps rock solid. Pretty good considering console version runs at 30 fps.
Never tried GTA IV though.
Anyway, the 520m is a damn good card for the price.

No you cannot run it

From TechPowerUp:
"As we saw in our benchmarks, NVIDIA's GeForce GT 520 is clearly not good enough for any serious gaming. If you are willing to sacrifice details settings, down to lowest in most games I could imagine things being playable at 1024x768, but not beyond. Decent cards for gaming start around $100 with GT 440 or HD 5750, which means $40 more than the GT 520. So instead of going with such a low-end card the better choice would be to buy one game less and spend the saved money on a decent graphics card like the GT 440 or GTS 450."

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GT_520...

Look, I really don't know if the laptop version, gt 520m is better or if the drivers were too young at the time of that review, but I'm writing from my own experience, also if you wish, there are a lot of youtube videos showing the performance of that card.
As I said, Modern Warfare 3 is not a demanding game, most console ports aren't. I could make a list of many games of this generation I can run on high or maxed out graphics, but again, you could check on youtube.
As for GTA IV and Max Payne 3, I dont know, Rockstar is known for being horrible at porting and optimizing their games, so it's probable they won't run well.
I can tell you about MW3, because I own the game and didn't even bothered to install it on my desktop computer, a quad core with a GTX 560 ti. Because on my laptop It was already on max settings and I could play it on the go.
Also, for the record, Rage runs at 60 fps and never drops.
Only game I couldn't play on my laptop so far was Witcher 2.

Max Payne 3 is not a port but you would not be able to run it maxed out. Maxed out needs at least 1.5GB of VRAM, 2GB to be safe and a very strong GPU core.

mw3 is that same engine that mw1 came out on, fyi, intel HD2000 is probably better 520m.