That extra polish adds to the overall feeling of the game.
Kind of funny when a sci-fi game has so much realism in it. Did you know in the 1st game you can't use the flamethrower in the vacuum? Of course that's the sensible solution, because the fire cannot exist without oxygen, but actually, flamethrowers have oxidants mixed with fuel, so that makes it possible to fire in vacuum. They fixed it in Dead Space 2. ;]

There are some very nice moments where they break the rules to make the RAAARR unpredictable.

Only real weakness of Dead Space is the depth. Story and setting are thinner than they seem if you look closely. Monster models get a palette shift when the stakes go up. Everything's done so well, shortcomings like that stand out more.

To me, the game felt like a ride at Disneyworld gone horribly wrong.

Not sure if it's a compliment or not haha

yeah, is vague. I think it was a good ride/game. I just could not shake the amusement park rides out of my head when playing.

It's tightly scripted with forced interludes, thrill ride is fair. It's done almost seamlessly though. Most games break immersion more often.

Dead Space - like so many other games - was ruined for me by the big H; 'Hype'.

I was told by friends, gaming websites and tv adverts that this was going to be the scariest thing I'd played in a long time. My friends who were playing this game when it came out were telling me how pants wettingly intense and scary it was and so I tested the waters and asked if it was anything like System Shock 2. No one I asked knew what System Shock 2 was (a real shame as one of these friends was really into Bioshock at the time...) but I decided that this was not really an issue. It's generally bad to compare games.
Still, I can't help but feel that there is a certain similarity between System Shock and Dead Space. After all, they're both set in space and feature bizarre monstrocities trying to kill your lone character. On trying to compare the two games though I was more reminded of another PC fright-fest from a few years back, namely:

Doom 3.

And yes, actually I feel Dead Space suffers from a lot of the same issues that Doom 3 had. It's not REALLY scary - it just startles you - and it leads you down a set path towards the endless jump scares. Also, Issac is a bit too hardy. I expected him to go down far more easily if he was caught and maybe for Dead Space to rely on the more sensible Frictional Games theory of running from the horrors and hiding like in Amnesia or Penumbra. However I instead found myself curb stomping the shambling terrors after beating the limbs off of them with my futuristic welding tool and shooting them in the face.

It was far more amusing than frightening which I suppose is another nod to Doom 3. There is nothing wrong with the gameplay or the interface, it just should never have been shoved down my throat as a terrifying immersive horror game.
Dead Space isn't some creeping, survival horror experience and is far more an enjoyable action game with lots of gore and cool ways of killing your enemies.
If you're looking to be genuinely scared, look elsewhere, if you like a good action romp, get this (but get it cheap...)

On the first available hard setting, he'll get cut in half by around 3 claw swipes. When surrounded, he's in serious danger until the final suit upgrade. Then there's that one recurring foe...

By the end of the game, he can handle pretty much anything. But by then I was more disturbed by the mountains of fleshy corpses that were piling up.

Actually I found Dead Space to be quite creepy and they employed quite a few nice ways to make the player scared which, at least for me, worked and kept me at an edge pretty much during the entire game: Barely hearable whispers accompany you troughout the whole game - You could hear something that sounded like automated computer announcer spewing cold, distant messages like "Search and rescue" ripped completely out of context, just to later repeat Isaac in various pitches and speeds.

I don't know why pretty much no one WAS scared of Dead Space, but I was playing on hard, with my headphones on and volume set quite high and I was constantly creeped out and nervous.

By the way, the only game Dead Space actually reminded me of WAS System Shock 2 - and that's quite high praise by someone who has SHODAN in his avatar.

It's a good game. Definitely worth a look.

After playing Dead Space, I was left unimpressed. I think that the original DOOM was more scary, despite being an action-shooter game because it had music, visuals, sounds, and dangerous opposition that added up to a experience that had tension. Games like Thief, System Shock, and When They Cry do a better job, because the various elements that make them up mesh together well, and then the designers place them in ways that help create the appropriate atmosphere.

That isn't to say that Dead Space is a bad game - I think that I have played too many excellent games, so it is now very hard to receive my approval when I compare most games with what I had experienced.

Dead Space has decent gameplay lifted from RE4, and a decent setting/plot lifted from System Shock 2. Unfortunately it relies way too much on pop up "scares," which don't actually scare you at all - just startle you. Horror game designers need to learn the difference between these and creating an atmosphere of horror.

Decent game, but I never finished it.

I agree that it is not really scary, but it's not what I was looking for when I bought it.

If it had been actually scary (as in, Amnesia levels of scary) then I'd not have been able to progress very far before I would stop playing (which happens every time I try to play Amnesia).

What I mainly wanted was simply another horror action game that played like RE4 (not a scary game either, but one of the best action games I've played).