It's one of the scariest games I've ever played, and I love it for that.
The shooting mechanics are some of the most realistic I've seen in a game, and the AI is brilliant. You can't pull stupid tricks on them, and they will flank, surround, suppress, and tear you to pieces if you aren't smart about it.
A ton of people have been complaining about the gun accuracy, but its just perfect IMO. If you could just camp on a hilltop and snipe everyone in a 360 radius it would be just plain boring. What most of these complainers fail to realize is that guns not intended for sniping generally can't hit a dime from 30m away. There's gonna be some room for uncertainty.
I love the unexpectedness of the game, there will be times when you think you're safe, and out of nowhere 12 dogs are surrounding you and you are shooting left and right in an attempt to stop yourself from becoming lunch. Luckily, the animal AI is excellent, and the animals are smart enough to run away if you shoot a few of em and behave as a pack rather than a group of enemies. It's got the most incredible feeling of Paranoia, and its tripled as soon as you hit the underground. The Bloodsuckers are invisible horrors that take 3 full clips to kill, assuming you hit em every time. Pseudogiants are giant demons of doom, Snorks are just freaky. X-18 is probably the scariest environment I've ever seen in a game thus far, though who knows, perhaps later there's something even scarier.
I think the game is brilliant for the way it catches you off guard every time, requiring you to be constantly on your toes and not afraid to take a risk yet smart enough to know when its wiser to retreat and take a better position.
The only disappointments I have is the bugs, loading screens, and the lack of economy in the game. There is money and the like, but it pretty much takes a backseat to the rest of the game. It's arguable that cash doesn't even matter, since you find stuff that is better than what the merchants have. I would have really liked if there were trade routes and supply runs you could make for extra cash which you would use for modding your guns and the like. Vehicles would have been a nice addition too.
The only other thing that annoyed me somewhat I guess would be the fact that the artifacts are not only as common as rocks, they are also more or less underpowered. I would have preferred them to be far rarer and more powerful. It's just that there are so many lying around on the ground, sometimes within 10 feet of each other, it just seems that since these things are what STALKERS are in this zone for, and for all the STALKERS you encounter, it seems strange that there would be so many just lying around.
The game extra dialog and writing is in Russian and set in the Ukraine, and I just happen to be a Russian-Speaking Ukrainian. I swear you are missing out on 70% of the game world's depth if you don't understand Russian. I can translate some of the phrases and anecdotes if anyone cares
