The Silent Hill HD collection is an excellent purchase for those who never got to experience it on the PS2.
The gameplay for both games remains unchanged from the original PS2 console releases. Because of your character's relative lack of fighting ability or even physical fitness, Silent Hill controls very slow and plodding, clunky even. Some may not like it, but it really does ratchet up the tension.
Much of the gameplay for Silent Hill involves exploration, puzzle solving, and some combat. However, unlike a lot of other survival horror games, with the exception of few choices fights, the characters in Silent Hill can avoid fighting altogether. Sometimes this is preferred depending on health, ammo, or weapons. When not encountering enemies, you'll be faced with puzzle solving. Many of the puzzles are very similar to the Resident Evil series: obtain item, use item to obtain key, advance the story, etc. However, Silent Hill also has riddles which depending on difficulty settings, can be real brain teasers.
The only gameplay issue I have is the camera. Obviously, this does make the game scarier, but there are times when the camera shifts abruptly and disorients you. The quick shift, where you move the camera behind the player, tends to give me a little bit of motion sickness as it moves quite quick and fluidly.
The visuals have obviously been updated to support 720p resolution and it really shows. Small details like items to pick up, monsters skin textures, and just the environments themselves look much cleaner. For Silent Hill 3, one might almost confuse it with a PS3 game as the character design looks so natural and realistic. Silent Hill 2 looks good as well, but not quite on par as the third game.
The only issue with the visuals I had here was frame rate pauses. They're pretty random and I really wonder why they are here. However, my God of War collections did this same thing too, so I'm not sure if it's just a PS2 classics thing or what. Otherwise, the game purrs along at 60 fps and looks butter smooth.
The real star of the show in Silent Hill, however, is the sound design. Silent Hill is very much driven by the score done by Akira Yamaoka. Both games have their background music done by him. These games do their best to scare the hell out of you. There are seemingly benign moments like walking around in a bathroom that are interrupted by the sudden scream and thump of a body hitting the floor. Many times these moments have nothing to do with the story at hand and this futher unnerves you as you never know what is going to happen.
Both games have re-done vocal work. A petition was done by fans of Silent Hill 2, so you have the option to play the original voices or the new ones. Silent Hill 3 is completely new, however, as the voice of Heather could not be found to use again. I'm a purist and I very much prefer the original voices for Silent Hill 2, but the new voices aren't bad. This really just comes down to personal preference.
Both of the games have all of the bonus content that came with them. Silent Hill 2, in particular, has the Greatest Hits version of it which includes the additional scenario "Born From A Wish" where you take control of Maria and experience a different part of the story and new locations. Both games have many multiple endings that are affected by your choices throughout the game so replays are recommended. Each playthrough usually takes around 6-10 hours if you've never played it before and less each subsequent time as you adapt. Both games include trophy support and obtaining certain trophies will require multiple plays.
One issue I have is the game data install itself. I find this really unnecessary considering both of God of War collections and the Metal Gear Solid collection didn't require to install any significant data. The Silent Hill collection requires 4 GB, plus an update patch at 250 MB as of this writing. This just seems completely unnecessary. I don't really notice any load time differences between this and the original console versions so once again, I wish this was avoidable.
The Silent Hill HD collection isn't for everyone. Both games tell very dark, deeply disturbing stories. They're atmospheric and scary. Two things that even modern games tend to get wrong. They're not for those who like the more recent Resident Evil titles, but if you're willing to have an open mind and deal with the controls, you'll find this collection is worthy of purchase.
The Good: Both games include all of their original content, option to choose original or new voices in Silent Hill 2, HD graphics look great, sound design is excellent, trophy support, lots of replay value.
The Bad: Frame rate issues, excessively large data install for updated PS2 games, controls and camera may frustrate some players.