The first Alone in the Dark title since the original that can be called, without caveats, a good game. Lacking some polish but on normal difficulty I never found the combat to be frustrating. Puzzles are straightforward, but well executed and signposted enough that I highly recommend playing on the "old-school" mode without hints.

Environments are richly detailed and more importantly, varied as it takes us through a number of well-executed southern gothic locales as well as some unexpected twists in the late-game. There's a strong ambience and the game keeps introducing new things at a fast enough pace that exploration doesn't get boring. The art direction of these environments is definitely the game's best facet and what most kept me going through to the end.

This is also the first Alone in the Dark since the original to recognize the franchise's cosmic horror roots. The game is maybe too keenly aware of this and never makes an attempt to venture out of the territory of being a Lovecraft pulp-pastiche. Given how few well-done versions of this exist in games perhaps sticking to that mold and not being overly-ambitious was precisely what it needed to do. Still it's definitely going to feel rote if you're familiar with the types of stories the game is directly copying.

Monster design is perhaps the most disappointing aspect. I'm not sure why when writing for a mythos with such a rich history of public domain creatures to pull from you'd stick with barely-distinguishable blob monsters.

Good enough, albeit not great pulp horror game. If you're interested pick it up when it's cheap, play through it in an evening or two and probably never think about it again.