Is Silent Hill or sort of...
Lets see the good ones first:
The music is no more made by Akira Yamaoka thats really sad but the new composer is Dan Licht yup the one that made Dexter themes and he is really good, he really does a great job in the music section, i cant think any other person that fits better in this.
The graphics are good (Unreal engine here)you will notice common things of the engine, that is loading textures sometimes, faces a little weird etc.
The story is very good and you will have some really creepy moments.
Exploring the town is really fun and you can expend a lot of time in it and there are a lot of side quest to do that encourages you to explore further more. Going with your flashlight or lighter exploring some dark apartment or cinema is priceless.
The voices acting for me it was really good i like it a lot the voice of Murphy is very well done.
Some puzzles are very well done you really have to think with some of them and they are very innovative.
The other world or the inferno mode is well done for the most of the time is very similar to Shatters memories. (Really miss the SH1/2/3 other world :( )
Now lets see what is bad in the game:
The combat is freaking bad and awful, really is terrible! If you play the game put it on easy!
The combat is like this: Grab a weapon, the enemy attacks 4 times, you cover the attacks(the cover is very bad and the camera goes crazy if you try to move while covering) then hit them twice and repeat until they are dead, find a new weapon cause you just break the one you got after that battle
The weapons breaking over time (like in origins or SH4) is a bad idea, I can understand that a wooden plank breaks with a few hits but an iron bar?Or an axe?
There are gun fires, but you can only carry one at the time, so if you find a shotgun latter on the game and you carry a pistol you will have to leave one...but not the ammo.
I think the combat almost ruin the game entirely because the best part of downpour is the exploring but the enemies in the town respawn so this take out the exploring part, from time to time there is a cop car that rounds the town if it spot you 3 enemies at the same time will attack you, why?I don't know this game really shouldn't have enemies at all or just a few, the combat doesn't fit at all
Leaving the combat, you found a lot of bugs, the game freeze all the time I dont know why but is always freezing and sometimes even for 3 seconds...in some scenes the lip sync doesn't match but very very bad, luckily is just in a few scenes.
Other bad thing is the save system, is not by checkpoint and you cant save when you want so you really cant tell when you save or not, the game is constantly saving I mean its saves all the time but if you die you will not load there even if the game just save. This is the most annoying part, when i want to quit i have to check in the menu put reload game and check when was the last time the game saved ....
Murphy nows talks you cant click on things like other silents hills, he give you hits from time to time of what to do and some times is fine but others not, for example when you first enter the town he will ask if anyone is there etc or you see a machine that you have to use to progress he will say something, but for example you enter in a room see a hang guy and he is like nothing not even a word...
In conclusion is a good game with serious technicals flaws and a very bad combat system that doesn't fit in the game at all still a very enjoyable game that will give you 12 hours of gameplay and some scary moments, just remember to put the easy difficult and you are up to go.