  We study the temporal and spectral characteristics of SMC X-3 during its 2016
outburst. To probe accretion onto highly magnetized neutron stars (NSs), at the
Eddington limit. We obtained XMM-Newton observations of SMC X-3 and combined
them with long-term observations by Swift. We studied the temporal and spectral
behavior of the source, and its short- and long-term evolution. We constructed
a simple toy-model to gain insight into the complex emission pattern of SMC
X-3. We confirm the pulse period of the system, derived by previous works and
note that the pulse has a complex, three peaked shape. We find that the pulsed
emission is dominated by hard photons, while at energies below ~1 keV, the
emission is virtually non-pulsating. We further find that the shape of the
pulse profile and the short and long-term evolution of the source light-curve
can be explained by invoking a combination of a "fan" and a "polar" beam. Our
spectroscopic analysis, reveals a two-component emission: a hard power law and
a soft thermal component. We find that the latter produces the bulk of the
non-pulsating emission and is most likely the result of reprocessing of the
primary hard emission, by optically thick material that partially obscures the
central source. We also detect strong emission lines from highly ionized
metals. The strength of the emission lines are strongly phase-depended. The
energy and temporal evolution and the shape of the pulse profile and the
long-term spectra evolution of the source are consistent with the expected
emission pattern of the accretion column in the super-critical regime, while
the presence of a large reprocessing region is consistent with the analysis of
previously studied X-ray pulsars observed at high accretion rates. The presence
of this region is consistent with recently proposed works that suggest that
high-B NSs occupy a considerable fraction of ULXs.
