Just finished two playthroughs in two days - one on Normal difficulty, one on Nightmare. I really liked it a lot and would probably give it an 8 or 9 out of 10. Very atmospheric, and quite unsettling on your first playthrough. I don't think I've ever been as scared to explore for collectibles as I was in this game.

Speaking of collectibles, this game has too many. Two playthroughs and despite a good bit of exploration I still haven't found all the chests, signs, or coffee thermoses, although I've come very close (which makes it that much more frustrating). I did manage to find every manuscript page on my own.

Thought that occurred many times while playing: this guy sure does drop all his stuff a lot. Seriously, I've never played a game where you lose all your equipment as frequently as you do in this one. I found myself saying "hold on to your gun!" whenever the latest vehicle crash/tumble down a cliff was about to happen. He never listened.

Get a job, ya bum!

Wow!!! 2 playthrough in two days!!! Were you wearing Depends?

And yeah, that was frustrating to me too. The worst part is that I was saving batteries, bullets (rifle/shotgun), etc. and then I would lose everything. So in the last episode I just used all my powerful weapons until all the ammo was gone.

Am I alone in finding the game to not really be "scary" at all? I think a lot of the scare impact is taken away when the action would go into slow-mo whenever an enemy was coming at you. It was tense, and still had a few moments that surprised me, but I certainly didn't find myself creeped out at any time as I would in any given Silent Hill game.

I never used my flare gun because I figured I needed to save it for something big. And of course I kept losing it. And of course there was a giant box full of flare guns right in front of the final boss.

I have one, but this was vacation week.

Total coincidence that vacation week came at the same time as 3 of the biggest game releases of the year.

Red Dead is a little boring and frustrating to me so far, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 didn't arrive until Wednesday, so Alan Wake got all my focus.

I'll admit, there were a couple of times in this game when I was a little worried that something was going to happen to make me pee on myself.

The slo-mo made it creepier I think, in that it puts more emphasis on the fact that something's coming after you. Rather than just mobbing you with a group of enemies coming out of nowhere, it's like the game itself is saying "Oh shit! Look behind you!" I found the game more unsettling in a Lovecraftian way than scary in a "boo!" way.

I think it was either the Joystiq or Weekend Confirmed guys that I heard it from, but the biggest piece of advice I heard before playing was don't save your stuff as you lose it often. Awesome advice and great for me cause I'm a hoarder. It really helped me though my game.

I think it was Weekend Confirmed that mentioned that.

I finally started the game last night. Did Episode 1 and loved it. The only thing that bugs me so far is the animation doesn't seem to be up to par. Looks like something we should have seen say, oh, 3 years ago?

I've only gotten through episode one, but I would have to agree. The game is not scary in any sense of the word that I have seen thus far. Sure, some great sound effects and atmosphere, but nothing that caused me to feel scared or jump.

I am enjoying the game a great deal and it's well done. The episode structure and the recap between episodes is a neat touch.

I'm playing through on hard right now and will do nightmare again to get the pages that require that difficulty level. I need to go back through level one again as I missed one page.

It is creeping me out pretty hardcore. The music in particular gets me.

I will admit to being a total horror lightweight though.

I got a Condemned vibe from the first level(forest-apple orchard), but not quite as scary.

I think they eventually got to a point where they had to stop tweaking graphics and just move forward gameplay-wise. But as I recall, up until a couple years ago this was supposed to be an open world game...

I got a lot more jump scares in Episode 2 than I did in Episode 1. Seems like that's where they ramp it up.

Third playthrough for missed collectibles complete. 1000/1000!

I know episode 2 had me jumping a couple of times.

I rarely get scared with videogames, I'm not even scared of the dark. But in this game I was always looking for some light

After finishing the first two chapters, here's the one thing so far that actually scared me:

That happened to me too during my first playthrough. I thought maybe I imagined it because it was so quick, and I didn't see it when I went through the game again. Very creepy.

I have been scared since the first boogeyman showed up...

I'm on Chapter 4, and I have to say: Barry is the greatest character in any video game ever.

I saw that too, creepy.

same experience for me. actually made heading further down the path more tense.

Yeah, the moment being discussed was a great one and really made me aware of how immersed in the game I was. I saw it, immediately ran to the other side of the room and waited a good minute to see if anything else happened before I moved on. It's very rare for me to get so wrapped up in a game that I start behaving in the game how I would in real life.