The extra proof of why indie gaming can be so great has finally made it to PC!
The biggest point should be the one to clear up first: You die A HECK OF A LOT! This is the perfect example of trial-and-death gameplay. It plays like your average old-school 2D platformer and has you solving physics-based puzzles in order to proceed. The deaths don't frustrate you as each one is somewhat useful for finding new solutions to puzzles. The developers clearly took this into account and made checkpoints more frequent than any other game I have played. Death is not a necessity and you can give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to make it past a puzzle without dying, but I can totally guarantee that avoiding ALL deaths on the first playthrough is just about impossible, even if you had a walkthrough. That reminds me, the deaths in this game are extremely gruesome. Since when have you seen a little boy impaled by a spider, or beheaded in a bear trap? Not often I'm sure, and depending on the audience it will either entertain or shock, or both.
Gameplay may make a game, but it does not necessarily ensure it is a work of art. On the other hand, the graphics certainly do. Machinarium had spoiled me for every time I looked at hand-drawn visuals merely due to its perfection in that game, but even then I can say that Limbo looks good, even if obviously indie at first glance. The animation of the natural environment and creatures and boy looks so smooth you'd think they used thousands of frames to perfect that. Everything is shaded but no two areas or objects look the same in darkness/lightness which makes the environment feel very dynamic and easy to distinguish despite the moody black-and-white colour.
Even though music is minimal in this game, it's springing cues can give one Goosebumps to the situation ahead. Even if that was entirely non-existent, the ambience would more than make up for it. One moment can have the place sounding like a quite, eventless natural forest. The next could tell you that something dangerous is coming up, or has been set up. Beauty is in every part of this game, but it is especially a part of the very thing it was least likely to be. I cannot say that if such ambience existed in my life that I would actually enjoy it, but in the game it feels incredibly immersive and engaging while even feeling very lonely.
What it lacks in the sense of replay value like games such as 'Saira', it makes up for it with standing in its own class of a work of art. I haven't completed the game yet so I cannot say whether there is much replay value from the secrets I have managed to collect so far so I am yet to find out. Even if nothing special comes up, the steam version has some interesting achievements that will easily encourage you to replay – one example being play through the whole story without dying more than 5 times. I was anxious and impatient for this game before I bought it the very day it was released on steam, and it was money well spent.