Genuine lovecraftian mystery
Lovecraft was a horror writer of a special sort. He was afraid of everything foreign, or different of his experience. He was afraid in a very conservative Victorian way. His anguishes are usually connected with the horror of discovering that something very old and powerful and above all non-british and totally unfamiliar has been waiting for millenia in some secret place and is now awakened.
This game gives you this particular branch of horror. It gives it in a very immersive way. The whole game experience is about being engulfed in this unspeakable (Lovecraft's preferred word) anguish. You visit places which are over-respectable in a way which is so dark and looming, that you expect some horrible secret to jump at you behind every corner.
The sound is one of the best I have ever seen in an adventure, paralleled maybe only by the Mexican music in Grim Fandango. I recommend good headphones. You can switch of the light too and place a candle next to your monitor. Your mom or girlfriend will need some time to make you stop yelling after they enter your room ;-).
The graphics are fine, they convey this "I wanna get out of here NOW" feeling of small overstuffed rooms in little respectable old British homes. Outdoor graphics are somewhat static, the rain pours but no tree leaf moves. What I personally loved was that there is no Kate Walker beauty getting between me and the action. I wasn't afraid for some Lara clone, no I was afraid for me.
The story is quite good, clear purpose, logical clues. There is a clue combination mechanism in this game which I found difficult to use in the beginning. The puzzles are not too difficult, they might even disappoint the hard core adventurers. But they fit into the story, which can't be said of a couple of other adventure games where some Pharaoh protects his tomb with colourful 2nd grade combinatorial puzzles.
I gave a 9 and not a 10 for following reasons. Many clues are never used, many questions never answered. E.g. Howard Loreid - you - repeatedly realises he can't remember what he did during several days. There is no answer to that. The end remains an enigma. I hope Zoetrope plan for a sequel, that would explain. Finally I didn't understand why the story happens in the near future, while the whole setting seems so 1920s.