Alan Wake seems fully intent on ruining everything it had ever had going for it.
Alan Wake does a pretty good job of ruining everything it has going for it, and it seems as if the developers just stopped caring about the actual game and simply decided to focus entirely on the hype machine, which never really stops since the game itself desperately tries to convince you its on some kind of epic quest to make a game thats driven by its story instead of its gameplay. Its broken into "episodes", and every episode has a recap, just like a television show. You find pages of a book that Alan, the central protagonist(If I actually have to explain that part to you, you definitely need to stop living under a rock), can't remember writing, which sounds like a great idea until they ruin it by having the pages describe what happens BEFORE it actually happens. Since the game spoils itself, you're never really suprised, since you know exactly what is going to happen in the next cutscene because the game JUST TOLD YOU.
The story itself barely even qualifies are truly interesting. Its got a great concept, but it isn't executed particularly well, which might be because the actual "game" part. Somehow, an evil entity has been possessing what must be an entire legion of backwoods country hicks and nobody seems ever the wiser. Alan is attacked by hordes of shadow people that the central antagonist possesses, but nobody in the town ever bothers to worry about it, instead simply ignoring it because hey, there's a PARADE about to go down. You'd think half the town suddenly disappearing over the course of a few days would be cause to worry, but the sheriff is to busy flirting with your fat friend to investigate.
The combat is quite possibly the worst offender, with a truly incredible concept being executed so poorly you'd think it was intentional. Alan must use light to weaken his opponenets before he can actually kill them, and he does this by...pointing a flashlight at them. You can also use flares, flash bang grenades(Again, nobody is even slightly curious as to the Bright Falls Police Department stocking what must be ten thousand flash bang grenades), and sometimes, a flare gun. The flares prevent enemies from approaching, the grenades and flare gun kill all enemies in a relatively large area instanteously, and the aforementioned flashlight slowly weakens them. Once they're no longer covered in darkness, you can shoot them your choice of any three guns, a pistol, a shotgun, and a hunting rifle. It takes exactly two shots to kill a normal enemy with a pistol, and one with the shotgun or rifle. There are larger shadow people, but they only require twice as many bullets. There are virtually no other kinds of enemies, no dogs, mountain lions, bears, nothing. A demonic entity can possess anything and only chooses to possess normal people.
Occasionaly, it actually possesses random objects and at point it possessed a bulldozer, but you destory them by...pointing a flashlight at them causing the entire object(Yes, even the bulldozer), to just disappear altogether. Inanimate objects simply fly at you in an attempt to do some damage, and you will them away with your flashlight. The game attempts to focus on a horror element in the hopes you'll be too frightened to realize its terrible, like the combat in the original Resident Evil games. However, it ruins it by slowing down the game, and then turning the camera to an enemy whenever(and wherever) they appear. So if an enemy is behind you, the camera jerks towards it and reveals the presence, which makes it completely unfrightening since you know EXACTLY what will happen every time before it actually happens. I wish I were joking.
In the end, the only thing Alan Wake does right is atmosphere, and it only does that well when you're in a forest in the middle of the night, which just so happens to be Alan's favorite place to be since he goes there every night since the developers realized they needed to make the game an actual game. Since they couldn't rely on anything else, like entertaining gameplay, they conveniently find a way to have Alan run around the forest for about three hours every night, often taking incredibly long paths towards his goal, so the game won't last just 4 hours.
Alan Wake is a bad game, but its mostly bad because the developers, and I can't believe I of all people think this, try TOO hard to focus on the story, because that's all it has going for it. They spent excess of four years creating a game, focusing on absolutely nothing game related all while hyping up a story that, in all brutal honesty, is barely worth publishing. It doesn't ever come full circle, never fully explains anything that happens, and leaves plot holes large enough to ram a bulldozer through in its wake. Alan Wake doesn't do anything right, and seems almost like it doesn't know what it wants to be. Pass this game up and buy The Darkness if you're looking for a primarily story driven game.