A great time spent!
Fear has one of the best gameplay I've ever played. What makes playing Fear so fun is the A.I. as many have mentioned, the A.I. is very smart though not challengingly difficult. The A.I. uses environments for cover or creates cover (moving sofas around), they call for back-up, they will suppress fire you while others are flanking you from the side, investigate if they see a light and other things. The gameplay kind of gets repetitive after awhile as you hardly leave the same environments, at times you would find yourself in a parking lot or wondering back allies, but usually you'll be in a building going through rooms you've felt that you've gone before. What upsets me is you basically have the same mission all the way through, it's ridiculous; and you'll be fighting by yourself all the way through as well. There are puzzles to complete in this game, yes, sometimes you won't know how to advance because you have to do something somewhere else, they're fairly easy and are not that much common throughout the game, but just thought I'd mention the puzzle aspect of it. I really like the bullet time effect it has in the game where you get to slow down time though it's been borrowed from previous games (what hasn't nowadays), to me thought it's a bit on the short time side of things. But it's fun, it gets you out of tough spots. You also fight basically the same enemies all the way through with a few surprises on the way. The weapons in the game are good, you get a few futuristic guns like the Plasma Rifle and so on, but it's basically regular weapons. There's also three different types of grenades with their own unique ability. Anyways, Fear does have it's spooky moments though it won't be that scary after playing it a second way through, but it's still kind of scary espcially on good graphics and sound. WARNING: be careful of fear forums because they're crawling with spoilers and trust me you'll like the ending.
Online is somewhat fun, there aren't much people playing on-line thought that will soon change with Fear Combat which is Fear Multi-player for Free. It's got your typical modes, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, etc. Some maps are quite small, but the strange thing is that some of the large maps are actually a little big to want to play on like Streets. The speed also goes a little fast since the default speed is 1.2 which is nothing big but is notable to mention; of course you can customize the options to have Fear run on the speed that you want since there's no running/sprinting button to press in this game. Another thing too is that the weapons seem a little unbalanced since some weapons kits are easier to kill than others. I mean it's fun, but the heart of the game is in the single player.
Graphics are amazing. Well at least 95% of it. If you've been on the Fear Hardware Performance Guide on Gamespot, you'll see that the best way for a performance gain is your graphics card, so make sure you have a decent graphics card for that's what this game relies on the most. You can still pass with 512mb-1gb of ram easily in this game with a decent processor, but the graphics card is what is needed most to enjoy the graphics, feel of the game, and even spooks. Like mentioned earlier, the only complain I have is the ugly effect a bullet gives to a wall. Like once you shoot at a wall and you get close, it kind of looks like a cut-out crater look. It doesn't really look like a bullet shot the wall. But anyways, the graphics are amazing even though I have an x1600xt, it still looks pretty sharp. Though the one thing you might want to turn off is soft shadow for that just plunges your framerates by around 30 and it doesn't look at that much better. The graphics are great with great explosions and physics effects, like mostly everything you shoot will likely react how you shot it. There's framerate dumps here and there in the game, usually when you're outside, but it stays at a decent framerate with the right system. Graphically it's what you want if you have a decent to high end system.
Sound is awesome. They change the music here and there during the game which just spooks you out. It also sucks when you're trying to sneak and you walk over cans or whatever and it makes a sound or whatever and you think it's someone behind you something. If you're lucky enough to have a decent to great sound card and/or speakers then you're in for a hell of a time. The guns sound real and powerful, you can hear where the enemies are coming from, great music, and just a pure joy to hear.
Fear is a game in which you probably won't be coming back after beating it a couple times. I mean the multiplayer really won't be dragging you back, it's fun, but not addictingly fun. It's fun to play once the single player gets boring or unscary. It's fun while it lasts and heck you'll be wanting more. The single player campaign is fairly long, 10+ hours, for some longer for they have to take breaks from scared. But it's a great single player though it does get a little bit repetitive.
One quick note: I'd like to say that I bought the Director's Edition of Fear which came with a few extras like a mini comic book (extended version of the intro movie scene, but still great comic), directors edition stuff like making the game, commentary of the first 40 minutes of the game, etc. It's great, I like the behind the scenes, this version costs roughly $38 on newegg I believe, to me it's worth it. It even comes all in a DVD so no need to be switching Cd's upon installing and no need to be taking care of all those cd's.
FINALLY I would like to say it's a very good game with good fears here and there and very good gameplay. I don't believe it's a system hog like others might tell you, just keep the resolution low and watch the shadows options. It's a great game if you're getting it for the PC and prefer the mouse and keyboard (it'll be coming soon to the xbox 360 in case you don't have an "average" pc). It's a good game if you have money and are looking for a new game that will keep you occupied and entertained with it's share of scares.