As a horror game, SOMA is scary for the first half of the game, but then once you observe how simple the monsters are to outsmart and navigate around, they become nothing more than annoyances - on top of which the monster encounters become a little formulaic and very predictable: you start to recognise the layouts of areas and realise that similar layouts are used for the same kinds of encounters throughout the game. I played on "Normal" mode (with monsters), but given what I just wrote, I would instead recommend "Safe" mode, which simplifies and nullifies a lot of the monster encounters. Don't feel like that would kill the horror at all though, the monsters do not provide the game's horror. Ultimately, by the time you get to the end of the game the monsters just feel like they are annoyingly interrupting your exploration and story. By this point, they have lost all fearsomeness, and the real horror in the game doesn't come from the monsters, but instead from the disturbing atmosphere and the turns taken by the story. It also seems that Frictional themselves realised this, since the monster encounters get shorter and shorter as the game goes on. The game's value comes from a story which is perfectly paced and makes you really think about the game's premise (with horrifying implications). The story-telling here is among the best of all in of video-games and really should be experienced. Unfortunately I can't write what makes the story so great without spoiling it. Sorry.
