F.E.A.R. is a standard first person shooter with some horror/slo-mo elements added in. In general, I never felt very polarized either way about FEAR, neither loving or hating it. Nothing much stands out in the game, run through linear passages through office/industrial/slum environments shooting enemies with a variety of weapons.

The enemies are quite smart and did surprise me several times when I was surrounded before I realized it. The problem is that the closed in spaces you fight in rarely have enough different passages to take advantage of the AI. FEAR's weapons are all standard fare, SMG, Rocket launcher, Pistol, Shotgun. Weapons do control well and feel powerful. Two that stand out were the penetrator, which fires metal projectiles that make for some humorous looking enemies pinned to walls, and the laser sniper rifle which makes enemies explode in a bloody mess, going against any kind of stealth or subtlety long range rifles are suited for.

Another way in which FEAR attempts to be different is by including a slow-motion ability which basically means you can move faster than enemies, see them being blown apart (literally) by your attacks in slow motion. Nothing too exciting. The few scripted hallucination events in the game seemed tacked on and if you've played Eternal Darkness, will seem like nothing special. These could have made the game much more interesting, but seem like yet another missed chance.

I thought multiplayer was more fun, if also basic. The standard Deathmatch, the team version of that, and the flag capturing version of that are provided, also with slow-mo variants that nobody plays. Speaking of which, not many are playing online except for peak periods and weekends. Nothing much impressive here, just running around maps mostly taken from the single player game competing for kills. Weapons are pretty imbalanced and from my experience the AR/Penetrator dominates the game.

The game looks good, but not great (noticing a trend here?) with some lighting effects that never really are taken advantage of, nice detail on characters, and lots of objects that blow up and go flying when firefights take place. I didn't notice any framerate issues or glitches in my time with the game.

The 360 version includes two very forgettable extra modes, instant action which places you in areas from the single player game with a number of enemies. It's a lot like a terrorist hunt on Rainbow Six, without as much customization, and only single player. A "bonus mission" of sorts which took all of 10 min and made little sense, not to mention taking place in familiar recycled environments with recycled enemies is included as well. On the topic of not making sense, the story doesn't. I wanted to understand it and I did, but only after a quick trip to wikipedia where someone had written a synopsis. What I understood is the story borrows pretty heavily and blatantly from The Ring and The Grudge.

Final verdict? I'd say 5 of 10, meaning it' s the perfect average FPS. Nothing here done wrong, nothing here done very right or exciting either. It's hard to recommend FEAR with better shooters like Rainbow Six:Vegas out and Half Life Orange Box coming out. I'd say pay no more than $30, and don't set your expectations high on this one.