Seems to be a lot of varying opinions. Personally I would say yes, it is. Probably the best first person horror game I've ever played and I loved Zombi U and Outlast to death. This tops them both, though I should reserve a bit of judgment since I'm very early on in the game and I am a bit of a huge Resident Evil fan and have been for a long time. That being said this game is absolutely mind-blowing with some of it's encounters.
As for the best horror in recent years, I might need to say yes in that aspect. I need to see how the story stacks up to the phenomenal Resident Evil: Revelations 2, which had a fantastic story that touched deeply on the series over reaching lore. It contained a major cliff hanger in the main story arch of the series that ties though most of the games. Interesting enough RE7 is not the only Resident Evil game in development, I believe they are working on two more. Probably a Revelations 3 which will bridge a gap between RE6 and RE7 and then likely something else to continue a massive story arch which will likely be 3rd person as one of our established heroes. With RE7's success I think we'll see another first person game. Rather it's RE8 or another category all together remains to be seen. I couldn't be more excited for being an RE fan as I am right now. Even more excited to know that those shitty Paul W. S. Anderson will finally be done and forgotten real soon!
As for people saying RE5 and 6 sucks. Sorry, but they don't. RE5 in particular was a fantastic game that was absolutely outstanding. Was it a horror game, no... hardly. But it's gameplay was rock solid and the story was interesting despite some terrible changes in plot directions due to game mechanics in its development. For those who are interested in that you can check this out: http://www.relyonhorror.com/in-depth/resident-evil-5-beta-4-5-information-lost-scrapped-concepts/ Personally I think the original pitch was better.
Okay, I think I kind of nerded out there for a minute.
