The horror genre is somewhat of a niche thing as most people don't like fear. That puts the survival horror genre in a difficult position. Either keep making the games scary, but risk losing money on wimps like me (silent hill) or mainstream the game so that people may not feel as intimidated by it (dead space). In my recent playthrough of Resident Evil 5 I noticed that Capcom found a third solution, adding Co-Op.

Some may argue that RE5 isn't a scary game either way, and they'd be right in a way, but the game is packed with tension that can be just as, if not more, terrifying. I never thought I would get to play this anyway, but I and my friend found it in the bargain bin with Burnout Paradise and Section 8 for $20 combined, so we said what-the-hay and went for it. But I digress; we played it and found that it's not scary at all. With the help of Skype, we talked and laughed about everything from sack-wearing, chainsaw wielding maniacs to indigenous zombies wearing tiki-masks.

The point I'm trying to make is that alone, I probably wouldn't have gotten past the first act, but playing Co-Op we stayed up 'till 2am and almost finished the sucker. I advise every horror game developer to add cooperative play to their game, not because games shouldn't be scary, but because it's a great way to draw in folks like me, and ultimately make more money!