Deadlight

[Samwise]

Gameplay trailer.

Picked this up cheap during the summer sale and am not regretting it.  It's a competently executed side-scrolling platformer, heavy on jumping/physics puzzles and light on combat.  Some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard in a game but you can't have everything.

Lots of interesting things done with the 3rd dimension given that it's a 2D game -- in some areas you'll see lots of zombies milling around in the "background" that may or may not take notice of you and shamble into the playing field, for example.  It's a nice sort of twist on the old parallax scrolling scenery concept, similar to Trine in that it's a 2D game rendered in 3D but looks much better IMO.

The zombie combat is VERY good; the zombies are slow, but between the stamina-limited melee attacks and the slow ammo-limited ranged attacks it's easy for them to overwhelm or corner you.  Strikes a good balance where you can put down a few zombies when the situation calls for it but you'll want to avoid/outrun them for the most part.

Oh, and between this and Battle Blocks Theater (also good) I finally broke down and got a PC-compatible controller.  I feel dirty for saying this, but I definitely recommend a controller for this one because the button combos get really awkward on a keyboard.

[Yegolev]

Don't feel dirty recommending a controller.

[pxib]

I loved it. Straightforward "puzzles" with genuine tension. Agree about the zombie combat: the protagonist feels awkward and untrained without  making me blame my deaths on a shitty control scheme. I shouldn't have gotten in that deep anyway.

Also, it's absolutely gorgeous. The shadow theater and washed-out background details turn some scenes into visual poetry. Made me think of The Road. The sound design - voice acting excepted - is another strong point. The story, on the other hand, is standard and predictable zombie fare... and the whole everybody's-a-serial-killer thing just made me roll my eyes. Play it for the moment by moment experience, not for the overarching themes.

Regardless, I probably paid more than you did for it and I'm not the least bit disappointed.

[KallDrexx]

I definitely enjoyed it, except for the ending. 

[Goreschach]

bla bla bla zombies

Stopped reading here.

[Samwise]

I definitely enjoyed it, except for the ending. 

God, the ending sucked.  Not just in terms of the story, which sucked anyway, but you could tell that their level designers/testers ran out of time and/or steam toward the end.  The level where you're running through the collapsing warehouse was an okay concept but glitchy/random as fuck in execution, and the final level where you're running from the armed dudes was just terrible.

Overall still a good game, it just sucks it ended on such a low note since that's what players tend to remember.

[UnSub]

I picked this up when it was free on Xbox Games for Gold.

It was a fair enough experience, provided you can accept the DARK DARK GRIM world. The artwork of the 'hero' looked like it was modelled on a Frank Miller sketch... and the story made about as much sense as one of his works too, minus the appearance of prostitutes.