I think this is not a game. It has so strong atmosphere that it can suck you in like a good novel. You live it...
But Silent Hill really makes you feel the survival instinct. Especially Silent Hill 3. You are just a teenage girl who is really helpless instead of being a special agent who has been training for decades, or being some guy who has unbelievable talents and whose nickname is really cool. As I told, you are just a helpless girl. You get tired just because you have run a few meters or you have swung your rusty pipe a few times. Monsters are really hard to kill and they sometimes gain new abilities which negates their weaknesses while you are progressing.(For example; you can kill first few closers just by circling around them and swinging your knife, but later in the game(not much later) they gain a counter-attack!).
And when it comes to items they are really too scarce. Yes you have a sub-machine gun in SH3 too, but don't think you can use it whenever you want because there are only few clips. And it isn't as powerful as you think. And there aren't any headshots too. Because of these reasons firearms aren't much reliable. "Then lets rely on melee?" Unfortunately, no. As I told, you get tired easily, and sometimes even if you knock down your opponent you don't have strength left to do the finishing move(smashing their skull or torso) and they get up again?!
But don't get disappointed, these aspects make the game more a survival horror game than a fps. If you blast every monster like in Painkiller(which was excellent in its genre, graphics and animations, I don't blame it) where is the survival thing?
Yet, it has "different" difficulty options both for battles and puzzles, so you don't have to worry if you are not a hardcore gamer or if you think you can't solve complex riddles.
And there is something I forgot, the character representation. It is excellent! Everyone has their own personality, for example, our heroine is a cute young girl and she behaves like how she would in real world. Only exception is that she is too brave; she doesn't feel scared when she sees corpses; which I thought at first was "very illogical" but that is later explained in the story (I already spoiled gameplay enough, I don't want to spoil the story, which is excellent and very immersive, too). I must admit I had fallen in love with her while I was playing the game.
If you love not to play but live, you should try this game because it really sucks you in.
Note: I don't suggest children playing this game because it contains some sexual and violent material, but more importantly it affects you psychologically.