Alan Wake

First of all, I am a fan of Alan Wake and I'd play the sequel in a heartbeat if they ever made one. It's atmospheric, cinematic and rife with panicked encounters. At least, it is for the first two chapters. After that, it loses much of its magic for the simple reason that you become conditioned to it. There are only so many possessed humans jumping out of bushes and coming at you with an axe you can handle before it becomes laborious to blind them and then shoot them. Rinse and repeat over and over again for 6 full chapters. What the game desperately needed was a more varied backdrop than endless forests at night time and swarms upon swarms of the same enemy type. Despite this, it remains one of the better horror games out there, and for this very reason it is still that cult classic that people just can't seem to stop talking about. If you haven't had your hands on a copy yet, what are you waiting for?