Raven Software are known for making games that are "just solid good", which tend to borrow best ideas from all other games and are sold in the "mid-range" prices. The middle segment developers, between AAA and indie. And Singularity is another example of their approach. Story-wise it incredibly stupidly fun, in a good way. There're "evil soviet scientists", there's time travel, there's a bunch of hilariously bad "russian" and the style is almost completely ripped of BioShock, but with a soviet twist, rather than something totalitarian. But it works. It looks good, it has some cool ideas and the presentation is very solid. Same goes for gameplay, that rips BioShock and TimeShift but in such smart and great way, that it doesn't feel like a "bad knock-off", rather a totally new thing heavily inspired by the ideas of other games. The upgrades, the time powers and such aren't actually super creative, but they work to create fun gameplay and succeed at that. So yeah, as always, it's a solid game, with lots of fun to have and is, probably, one of the most creative games from Raven so far. Definite buy on sales and a definite option to consider for full price.
Dead Space got released after Resident Evil 4 and was initially viewed as a simple attempt to cash in on the success of that over the shoulder "survival action" part of Resident Evil franchise. That's how I viewed it too, initially. But the more I played, the more I understood how wrong I was. Classic survival horrors were loved for many same thing classic metroidvanias and modern Souls games are loved - intricate level design, smart enemy placement, "thinking" methodical action, more emphasis on gameplay with story being more ambient. In addition, classic survival horrors tended to have very "in the game" user interface ideas, to fully immerse you. And that's what Dead Space attempts to accomplish in it's obviously more action-focused attempt at survival horror. Levels are interconnected with constant promise of optional backtracking and exploration, button prompts, health indicator and other UI things are all part of the game world, story is told in a very quite, ambient way, sometimed without using words and even the action itself, despite over the shoulder view and ability to move and shoot, tries to be strategic via the "cut the limbs" idea and using those limbs and other garbage around you as possible weapons for ammo preservation. Game has very distinct feel, very stylish looks, that desspite being clearly outdated, still looks great. Fantastic sound design that uses sounds to help or confuse, scare or relax the players. Really smart update on the Resident Evil control scheme, making it more TPS-like, yet still more slow and "heavy" to use. Actually interesting take on HL2-like physical puzzles. And tons of replayability options. Dead Space is an amazing game that had more drops of classic survival horror beauty in it than most modern games that call themselves survival horror or survival action. It's a definite must try for anyone who likes horror and survival horror/action games or just wants to see how to make a good third person game about space.
