Alan Wake's American Nightmare

I thought the idea for the story was pretty cool but the content after playing for about an hour is both expected as well as being extremely repetitive. It is one of those games where you get a bit of story and have to walk to the next place to get more story. On the way there you shoot some guys. Repeat until the end of the game. Also, due to the story, you pretty much spend all your time in the same place over and over. I guess that is the point. Pretty much no replay value IMHO as the only thing it really had going for it was the cool story.

This was released as a standalone DLC for the original Alan Wake and was never meant to be an entirely new experience. As for the gameplay, if you liked Alan Wake, you'll like this. The puzzles can be easier simply because of the scope of the game being significantly smaller, but still much larger than The Signal and The Writer; that said, it is a direct sequel to The Writer. The name for the episode of Night Springs that you are playing out is called "The Return" and is the story being written by Wake at the end of The Writer. It is considered an in-universe spin-off similar to The Signal and The Writer since Wake is trapped in the Dark Place throughout all 3 of them. Worth playing if you enjoyed Alan Wake and it's couple DLC episodes; not a "sequel" to the main story, so don't expect all the holes to get tied up nicely.

The game is funny and gives you more extra-fight time with "till dawn" mode. But I don't think you'd like this if you didn't play Alan Wake to the end.

I cannot believe I bought this awesome 3D game for 1.49 euros; it must be the spirit of Christmas! Incidentally, on my Toshiba laptop with a meager nVidia GTX 950m it plays wonderfully, and certainly much better than the other Alan Wake game. Strongly recommend for purchase!

If you come to 'american nightmare' from Alan Wake expecting a game that builds on the strengths of the previous title you'll be sorely disappointed. While fighting in AW was something you had to do with some consideration it is pretty much all you do in AN. The moody feeling and excellent use of music is gone, it is in fact rather bad and misplaced in AN. On top of that the game repeats on itself and you have to replay, quite literary, the same levels three times before the game is over, I was bored the second time around. I think, in fact hope, that this will be the most boring and disappointing game I play this year. I implore you to get AW as it is a quite brilliant game but for your own sake give AN a miss, you wont miss out on anything.