If the ring was a game...
Gameplay: Gameplay received an 8. One one hand, the fighting is very intuitive and easy to learn. At higher levels of difficulty, the game becomes impossible to play unless you have excellent strategy in first person shooters. At lower difficulties, it may seem like the soldiers simply kill themselves. The gameplay ranges from quick and heartstopping, to slow and gut wrenching. In some parts of the game you'll be fighting waves of enemies (all the while finding ammo and health). Other times, when applicable, stealth can be a fun addition. FEAR gives you the ability to pocket your guns (which you can only hold two of, along with 5 of each grenade) and dish out some close quarters pain. You can throw a punch, or jump and drop kick, or jump and swing your leg around, instantly killing all who get in the way.
FEAR also banks on the bullet time craze, although instead of calling it bullet time, it's your reflex. Being the supersoldier you are, you have amazing reflexes unmatched by anyone (unless you play online). You can find Health and reflex boosters which permanently boost your maximum health and reflex time (although the most we found was about 6 health and 5 reflex boosters) these are hidden around the game, many in obvious spots, but others not so obvious.
Multiplayer allows for slowmo games, where a reflex booster is placed somewhere in the map. The player who gets it first gives him and his team the ability to slow down time. Multiplayer, however, turns out to be not much more than running and gunning, camping and spraying. The HV penetrator will soon be your best friend, and it is the most used weapon (even more than the rocket launcher)
Graphics: The graphics are amazing, although you probably won't be able to see it. This game requires a lot of oomph to play. I personally have 769mb of ram with an ATI Radeon 9550 128mb and could play this game on low quality max. But even on low quality, the game still looks spectacular. The sequences where you have encounters with alma (the generic scary little girl) or Fettel.
Sound: What can I say about the music and ambiance? Right from the opening credits, the sound never failed to impress me. From the sound of static over your radio, to the barely coherent chatter on the radio, you'll feel immersed into this game from the start to finish.
Value: From the points I just listed, FEAR is definitely worth the 50 bucks it costs, and even more to get the DVD directors edition.
The ending left a little more to be desired, as it didn't wrap up the story as well as I thought it would. But those aside, i give this game an 8.6 out of 10.
Pros: I think I had a heart attack several times from some of the ingame "scares". The graphics are amazing, the ambiance rivals that of movies, and the multiplayer is smoother than doom3 was (even with slowmo).
Cons: The graphics are amazing, but it's a huge system hog and if you have a low end computer, don't bother unless you have money to upgrade. Also, while the gameplay is intuitive, you get tired fighting the same enemies all the time.