The title that redefined survival horror?
The first thing that gets you are the enemies. Having to cut off the limbs of your enemy makes the fights much more dramatic and gripping. You want to just run backwards and shoot away, hoping that eventually you will put enough bullets in your foes to make them die but it just doesn't happen. Instead you have to try to be calm as they run towards you, concentrating on when the perfect shot will present itself so you can take off one arm, then a leg, or the head. Plus the enemies are smart. Sometimes they'll jump into an air duct, then pop out of one that's behind you. You've got to be on your toes at all times, especially when fighting on zero gravity or the vacuum of space.
Overall this game has very high production values, something that I am not used to from EA. The audio is excellent, the graphics are also impressive, and the game will make you as scared as you were the first time you played Resident Evil 1. The only complaint I have is that sometimes your aiming laser might be right on an enemy but for whatever reason your bullets fly right past their limbs. This can be frustrating when you know you should be hitting them but nothing happens.
With that one small frustration in mind, I enjoyed Dead Space a lot and it's one of the few survival horror games I have played that didn't really disappoint me in any way. With Resident Evil I sometimes felt it was a bit long or that the gameplay wasn't as action packed as it should be, and some other games like Clock Tower just didn't interest me story wise. Dead Space has great pacing (though some backtracking can be a bit tedious), the length of the game is just right (it's not so long you don't want to play it again but not too short where you feel ripped off), and as I mentioned above I don't think any area of the game outshined the other. There is a harmony of all the different parts which come together and offer an excellent playing experience.