I platted Bioshock in one run so here are my tips to success.
^Up until you get past Arcadia the game is very difficult and frustrating. Once you get the chemical thrower the game becomes pretty easy even on survivor. I will say that the only difficult thing in the starting levels are the Big daddy battles, (and boss battles) but if you are smart you can beat them using the environment and minimal supplies.
(The following is blacked out in case people didn't want to read my specific tips there are no story spoilers in the blacked out areas)
BalckUsing low Eve plasmids like security target and Target dummy are essential to success in the first few levels. Later on I found myself only using electro bolt, security target, hypnotize big daddy and telekennisis with any regularity. In fact I never upgraded any of the combat plasmids because the damage to eve expense ratio was so low. Using telekenisis to launch red barrels was more damaging than Electro 3, or Incinerate 3.
The choice in tonics is key to minimizing frustration, in combat go with all the wrench upgrades because the wrench is the most useful weapon in the game on survivor mode since it doesn't have ammo. Physical you'll want eve link, scrounger, sportboost and the all mighty camoflauge. Engineering tonics are a mixed bag but you'll want anything that helps invent items or anything that makes it easier to hack stuff (if you're not good at doing it normally). Also shorten alarms is pretty important if you haven't got the natural cammo tonic, or you don't want to stand still for a whole minute.
Don't even bother using regular ammunition unless that's all you have because it barely does any damage. In fact with all the wrench damage tonics active two hits with the wrench does more damage than an entire clip of machine gun or shotgun rounds. In fact liquid nitrogen or electro gel followed by quick wrench attacks are the best combat moves in the game. (Although cracking frozen people apart yields no loot). Also each enemy has a specific weakness to certain weapons or ammunition, I won't tell you because that's giving to much away, however, once you figure our which attacks/ammo are most effective you'll be flying through the game in now time.
One last hint, always always keep your eyes open for things in the environment that will help you and lure enemies into them if you can't take them with you.
