At its heart, Alan Wake is a darkened slog through annoyingly-shielded enemies. Besides that, it's a entertaining narrative about the creative process, with a heaping helping of Stephen King and Twin Peaks references (tonal and otherwise) on top. It's the latter that definitely makes it worth playing, but the former that put me off the combat-heavy DLC chapters. The wonky dodging mechanic and camera controls don't exactly help, either. Still, the game holds up quite well in a graphical sense.