I picked this up today cause Im in a total Dead Space kick. Played through the first 2 chapters, got to the 3rd but it froze up for me. I guess most would want to consider this a rental, but I really like the world they've created here so I figured to be supportive as possible to the dev's I'd just buy the thing. On with the impressions: it's a light gun shooter, its on rails, but with those restrictions it is still a whole lot of fun. Its more than just shooting and reloading. A lot of the stuff from the first game carries over in some way here, you can still slow down enemies with stasis and pick up items with kenesis and even use melee attacks if those baddies overwhelm you. In some spots, the ride will pause and allow you to look around momentarily to find some side armory room with pickups or audio and text logs so you have to keep your eyes peeled. The shooting works like you think it would in a Dead Space rails shooter, kill the monsters by dissecting them. There's even a inventory of weapons you can choose on the fly at your disposal, so with all thats available to you, the shooting never gets overly repetitious. There's even a little hacking mini game where you trace along a line connecting nodes all while keeping the mobs of hungry critters from dismembering you. There are moments of tension aplenty and your almost always on your toes.
Im surprised to see how close the game comes to looking like the graphically superior first one. Some of the environments you'll be able to recognize. In fact the presentation of the game is all top notch and genuinely sounds and feels like a Dead Space game should. Even the voice acting on the characters you travel with come off sufficiently and often professional enough. So far I'm very impressed with everything I've gotten to play. I think the only thing thats bugging me a little are the text logs that you do try to go out of your way to find, as far Ive been able to tell, all that Ive read out of them were cut & pasted right from the first game. Since I came right off from playing Dead Space, Im able to remember the logs as Im reading them, which is a little disappointing, I would've liked to find new backstory stuff that would shed new light on things. Ah well, Im only 2 chapters in so maybe I will find some hopefully.