It's not a lake. It's an ocean.

First things first. This was not my first playthrough of Alan Wake. I played the original a lot of years ago and I thought it was great. But now... I still think the story is great. It's nicely told and the DLCs add more context. It's kind of open to interpretation but at the same time, not difficult to understand what is happening and the symbolism of it.

But this is not a book. It's a video game. And the interactive part is... yeah, not very good at all. I think Remedy wanted to do things they ultimately couldn't and it was cut out. I remember they wanted to make a semi open world and you can catch a glimpse of that in the latter parts... It shows. Game is full of enemy encounters constantly. You almost have no time to breath between light sources. It's repetitive and boring. Too simple, just use the light and shoot. Tho, I like how the game makes you use all your equipment in clever ways to clear some encounters. That's rewarding. A shame that only happen a number of limited times. Also it kind of feels too long... I don't know.

It's a great story encapsulated in a meh game that sometimes shows intention within the gameplay. But just sometimes.