Not as bad as you might suspect... not as good either.
Second issue with this game is the lacking in the bestiary department. There are only five types of creatures you encounter, plus the stupid Russians and a very frustrating final (and only) boss. Russians in this game are unimaginably stupid, trying to protect something turned against them. Why not work together with Hansen, the main protagonist? Yet another Russian stereotype perhaps?
Gameplay is mediocre, take just about every third person shooter in history, add one RE4 mechanics, which happens to be right click aiming, and you'll get Cold Fear. There are no upgrades in this game, apart from acquiring new weapons from time to time. Which lowers the gameplay's interest quite a notch. If the developers would add a few possibilities to tune weapons as in most other games of the theme, I would give this game two points more.
Difficulty is uneven. Pretty hard in the beginning, when all you have is a lousy pistol. But once you acquired a shotgun it becomes a walk in the park. Only the final boss breaks a combo by being "uber-tough". All in all I gave it a hard difficulty rating only due to the beginning of the game and the final boss. The rest of the game might be described as easy to very easy.
Story is terrible, vague and cheesy. Ripped right off Famke Janssen's "Deep Rising", about some ancient evil that or other that came out from the sea to haunt us all. Boooo-haaa... I think I even saw a Cthulhu or two on my way to the grand finale, or was my mind just hallucinating deja vu associations?
Graphics are pretty good for 2005 game. Especially the wave and overall weather effects on sea. This is probably the best aspect of this game. Water effects could even laugh in the Bioshock's face (which I hated by the way). They were all really good and believable, I really felt as if though I was at the ocean in the time of a storm. Too bad the interiors didn't move in a symphony of what was happening outside, such a buzzkill.
Level design wasn't bad, it somehow convinced me. I prefer well detailed bases and interiors, instead of shallow outside. At least they don't seem artificial... oh, the irony!
So, what's next? I would say play Dead Space, Resident Evil 4 and finally Extermination, in that order. None of them are scary, but all are good survival horror games with less superficial gameplay elements than Cold Fear. If you've already played them, try renting or borrowing this game, if only for the superb weather effects. And if you really want to get scared try System Shock 2 (on low brightness), The White Chamber and Silent Hill 2. Those three are the only games that ever scared me (The White Chamber more than the rest, since the sound design and the story were simply ingenious). Eternal Darkness might do the job too, but I haven't played it, since the last Nintendo console I owned was N64.
Let us hope that games such as Cold Fear are a thing of the past. That the scares will come by a good story with lots of moral dilemma's, dubious protagonists and an atmosphere that would make you go insane, in a mixture of smart scares through superb sound design. And not by just pouring gallons of "ketsup" and throwing tons of funny smelling body parts on our agonized heads.