Nice review and congratulations on getting your wife engaged in watching a video game.
I have not played Alan Wake, I am interested, but there are many and wide conflicting opinions on it. Here is a review from GameFaqs to counter your glowing Oscar nomination for Alan Wake:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/xbox360/928006-alan-wake/reviews/review-141597
The author JezebelTruant sums up Alan Wake as an "insulting, empty experience." If you read she will describe it as "completely lacking in the most crucial element of any game. Interaction and immersion..." Further on JezebelTruant elaborates,
"To elaborate on the fatal lack of immersion, Alan Wake is nothing but a rail system behind of smoke and mirrors of burning cash. You cannot interact with anything in your environment. You can't examine things. Approach a door and it opens. With no prompt from the player. You cannot even choose to open a door. There are several NPCs in this game-- but you cannot interact with them. Instead, stand vaguely near them to perhaps initiate dialog. Stand around and wait 30 seconds to see if they are finished when they stop speaking, or if they have anything else to say."
As for the replayability, JezebelTruant explains,
"This is the most linear game I have encountered on the next gen systems. You can't explore-- and even if you were to try, there is no point. If you advance to far, narration kicks in at a trigger point and spins events out of order. There are NO items in this game save a ridiculous abundance of ammunition and batteries for your flashlight. No health items, no puzzle pieces, no memos. Just a few keys that are right next to their use point. To top it off, the items that do make an appearance double as product placement."
Even more insulting, "Speaking of enemies, there are about three of them. Total. A guy with a hat, a guy with ear muffs and poltergeist wheelbarrows. Defeating them requires the exact same strategy, which is no “strategy” at all. Aim a flashlight at them and shoot them in the face/haunted aluminum siding/trucker hat."
I was thinking about picking up Alan Wake until I encountered many similar reviews like JezebelTruant's Alan Wake review on both GameSpot and GameFaqs.
