I bought this game in pre-beta, and I quite enjoy it, to be honest. The gameplay and all this luck factors are a little annoying, but I have to admit this game is quite good, for an indie game. I haven't played amnesia (yet) so I may not have a good comparison, but it is scary. And the way I see it, it adds a lot of suspense to gaming, which is rather new. All horror games I've played (Resident evil, Rise of Nightmares, Doom, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark) depend more on jump scares or fierce enemies, or just gore. While this game makes you do silly and simple tasks depending solely on suspense, like in Hitchcock's thrillers (e.g "Rope").
It's not a perfect game, but why all this hatred towards it? Even Daikatana or Blood 2 were treated better.

I don't understand it either, man. I watched the Giant Bomb quick look, and thought it looked good.

One word: Pew.Die.Pie.

Alright, lets try and break down for a serious reply.

To anyone who has played a horror game, Slender and its clones are rather shall we say, polarizing. Especially due in part due to the baffling and vocal fandom.

Many say that Slender and its kin fall into what Totalbiscut coined as 'desperation games'. For example, my desperation game was Skyward Sword. I wanted a swansong game for the Wii, and a big game to celebrate a series that I had spent much of my life with. And boy, did Skyward Sword fail to live up to the hype train that Nintendo built up. I've gone on long tangents before describing what I feel that Eiji Aonuma's mistakes were, so I'll spare that.

Others feel that Slenderman himself is the Star Wars Christmas Special of horror, in that it dives right past 'so bad its good', and dives off the chart. Even if you were to have a bad movie night, STCS is one of those movies that's so bad that it'd ruin the night.

Others feel that Slender is the Reggie Fise-Aime of the horror world, an unnecessary and questionable addition who is a horrible figurehead.Who is also creepy, but more in the, 'I've got free candy in my unmarked van' way.

Man, I couldn't agree less with everything you just said.

I think my review sums it up. Bugs, bad controls, randomized gameplay, repetitive levels and bad optimization. Seriously, the game runs like crap on my rig and I can run most games maxed out.

youtube.com/watch?v=NTsNfgfIaDg

If you'd care to elaborate, my ears while covered in a veil of this cloak, are open.

I contest the notion that randomized gameplay is necessarily a bad idea, but I concede the optimization; I find it baffling that this is a supposed to be a successor to a game that ran on every PC I tried it on, and yet it despite looking only marginally better, it runs like complete and total ass. I mean, it's not as if the earlier engine wasn't already pretty good, nor do I believe that swaying branches and grass are so fundamentally important to gameplay that they must always be active.

Perhaps my phrasing was inaccurate to my feelings. The sentiments you described, while not always being your own, I am at odds with.

WOAH! Blood 2 is a very solid FPS!

i think the problem is the shadows. without shadows the game runs fine, but shadows on is really sloppy. i think it must be (un)optimized in a way where it renders shadows poorly, maybe renders too much, bad draw distance, etc.

it actually doesn't look too bad, those outdoor areas look almost photoreal.

Does anyone have a legitimate opinion of the game, that doesn't consist of whining because their computer can't run it?

You guys do realize that motion blur can be disabled in options? And TAB disables camera-like HUD?
I'm playing on the lowest possible settings and it still looks good (and runs pretty smooth).

I have turned everything off, and the game still runs at an embarrassingly low FPS. Furthermore, by lowering the settings so much, I am now unable to read notes that I pick up.

I used to think Slenderman was silly until I watched the Marble Hornets and got immersed in the mythos and story that they came up with behind the creature. I think watching the series gives some better context for what these indie developers are trying to achieve, which isn't a game to appeal to everyone or anyone looking for a horror game, but for those that have already expressed an interest in Slender man and his spinoff stories.

youtube.com/watch?v=Wmhfn3mgWUI <-- Marble Hornets Ep0 (Intro). There is roughly a new episode every few weeks.

marblehornets.wikidot.com/slender-man

First, you should realize that Slender and Slenderman are simply internet names that came out of the creepypasta revolving around the origin of the character. Most of the stories that have come out since then refer to Slenderman as "The Operator". An entity that stalks people, mainly teenagers, for unknown reasons. He rarely shows up in the mythos and instead acts through proxies, or teenagers that have been converted or manipulated by The Operator and are likely those that have come into contact with the Operator and weren't able to escape.

So with that taken into consideration. Slender, is a game that lets you briefly act out and experience what it might be like to feel isolated in the woods or a house like one of the characters from Marble Hornets, stalked by The Operators and his Proxies.

The Devs are likely limited by the fact that they can't blatantly rip off the lore that the Marble Hornets series has created for The Operator, so they instead come up with a bit of a mini-game that gets you to explore the environment they've created as a carrot on a stick.

The game isn't for everyone, but if you appreciate indie horror, what Marble Hornets is doing, or the like, then the game is at least enjoyable in that it briefly immerses you in a world that you are familiar with and have already taken an interest too. I also see it as an investment, as if this game raises enough revenue maybe the fans could get a story driven experience that they want and might appeal to a broader audience.

I think the reviews that write off the game and don't consider the context of the mythos or series is doing the game an unfair injustice. If you want to buy the game and admit that you didn't like it or it wasn't for you is one thing, but some of the reviews are quite frankly ignorant, and its a shame if it scares away lovers of the character/series because they think its a completely irrelevant and lackluster experience.

did you actually watch my review? i think what i said is pretty legitimate.

i talk about the repetition of levels and bugs among other things. when a 700mb game runs like crap on a high-end rig, that means its unoptimized, which deserves to be brought up. that's not whining, it's valid criticism. especially when it doesn't look that good to begin with.