F.E.A.R. is the king of average games. Oh yeah, it looks pretty - but it doesn't really do anything particularly well.
Well, I'll admit that the graphics in F.E.A.R. are downright gorgeous. It's as if they took the best parts of the Source and Doom 3 engines and just mixed them up into one happy pie. The game renders more real time physics data in one level then any other game i've played had in the entire game, which is a nice touch to try and suck you into the game. Your can empty a clip from your assault rifle into a room, and watch as the light over head ends up swinging from side to side, casting shadows all over the rest of the room, while a locker door swings back and forth, casting its shadows all across the room, and your own shadow gets cast around as well. Needless to say, that's really dang cool. Character models and textures are generally top notch, again taking some of the best features from Doom 3 and Source and mixing them up for a feast for the eyes. My only quibble with the graphics is that the textures for most walls, some floors, and occasional random objects seem to be far below the standard for detail, and often sink the level from looking gorgeous to just bland.
The gameplay is a mix of two completely different sub-genres of the FPS. Survival horror and tactical combat come together in what i consider about as harmonious a meeting as a peanutbutter and turkey tuna sandwhich - Yeah, there's somebody out there who likes it, but i just cant seem to see whats so good about it. The enemy AI is smart. VERY smart. But it's hard to give more points to a game because of that given how much better AI in general has become. And the horror elements that try to creep into the game just seem misplaced and random, and dont serve much purpose but to temporarily throw you from your tactical combat enduced high. And then there's the story. Or is there? You can play this game for a seriously long time without ever figuring out what the heck your doing. And when you don't know what your doing, at least I usually also lack motivation, and eventually get bored much quicker then i would otherwise.
Now, I'll admit that by no means is F.E.A.R. a BAD game, I just dont think it deserves some of the scores i've seen it get. It's a fun game, and if you like FPSes, id say its worth your money. But if your not a huge fan of FPSers, maybe you should consider waiting till the price drops, because there's really nothing special about this game to make it stand out in a crowd, other then the pretty graphics.
And one last quibble, F.E.A.R. runs with occasional lag on medium settings on an AMD 3200+ with 2GB Corsair Dual Channel DDR400, and Dual 6800s in SLi. If you don't have one beast of a rig, you might not even get one of the best points of the game, the pretty graphics. I would note though, that the occasional lag i dealt with was probably caused by my processor, because of how much physics data F.E.A.R. is computing every second. If you have a Pentium D or AMD3800+ or better, i dont think you'll have any problems - although you may still need to tweak down a setting or two.