Do You Want To Know More About THE EVIL WITHIN...?
I was meaning to go over some of my favorite games this year with a more in depth hindsight point of view, and this post on NeoGaf showed up that pretty much explains what maybe I couldnt about the gameplay experience. That is that while you do power up while you progress through the game, the game also takes away as much as it gives to maintain a balance, making the whole experience kind of stressful from beginning to end. Most other games that let you power up your build basically let you become over powered to the point where enemies stop posing much of a challenge and you start striking everything down like a hot knife through butter, The Evil Within does not let you do this. The boss fights are cruel and inventive, and you always seem to have just enough ammo to get by, despite your strength. Conserving ammo is necessary and adds to your strategy, not to mention traps and confusing level navigation for extra challenge.
If you haven't played the game and are interested in more details visit the NeoGaf thread.
I agree with most of the points, however there are a lot of naysayers in the comments. Interesting read nonetheless.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=960796
I take it it's a spoiler-heavy post, but I like this notion of powering up without being overpowered for the challenges you face. I think Metroid Prime did that really (almost too/frustratingly) well. You had everything at your disposal towards the end, but you needed every last bit of it too.
It's pretty spoiler free. The writer speaks very eloquently about what makes the balance of game play so rewarding. It's specifically talking about Survival mode, which is probably one of the harder modes available, and so the game took him like 30 hours to finish, when most finish 15-20 and dismissed the whole thing.
I've heared mixed things but it seems like you liked the game a lot. I will probably pick it up eventually during a Steam sale.