- Very little marketing.

- Got unfairly punished by reviews because they expected more from a game with 5 years in development.

- Confusion of genre. Action-thriller is still survival-horror in people's minds to this day.

- Bad timing of release date. Late spring is a very slow season and then Red Dead on the same week...

Well i got RDR and Alan Wake at the same time. I love RDR. Alan Wake is a good game but not GOTY. It has a great spook mood to the game. Playing in the night time looks great but the day time has some ugly graphics. Is it a good game I say yes. Is it great no. Maybe if the game came out a year ago it could have been a top tier game.

Ultimately, the game was just a disappointment. Many gamers unfortunately swear by Metacritic. Several were expecting it to not only get a higher rating than Galaxy 2. In retrospect that is laughable but alas, http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=108372

With the hundreds of threads made here about Alan Wake over the past year, many people touted it as the last system seller before Halo Reach, although I can acknowledge than no one was dumb enough to think it would exceed the sales potential of that game.

Plus, people were comparing it to much more mass-appealing titles, like Galaxy 2 stated previously, and God of War 3: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=107492

When you put things like that, the game loses every time. Also, I think you would be surprised how much an uglyprotagonist can be a turn off to people. The boxart isn't doing it any favors either. It is almost as bad as Ju-on.

Remember what I said earlier:

"Now, I'm not the one to call guys cute, and bald space marines don't exactly make the cover of GQ magazine, but Alan Wake just looks like a douche." Marcus Fenix makes up for his rapist looks with grunts, swearing, gratuitous gore, and a couple vicious guns.

I'm not going to call Wake a flop. I will wait for someone else to tell the truth.

I think Red Dead Redemption is the only reason why Alan Wake is seeing slow sales. People expected Alan Wake to outsell Heavy Rain but it didn't.

I personally would have used the term hasn't

Sure, we can assume you have super human sight but for 99.99% of people they would never know the game is 540p.  Those people are simply fanboys making mountians out of molehills and they would never know the game is less than 720p if they were never told.

It really is just a giant non-issue and one of those ones people just don't notice unless they're specifically told.  You're acting as if the game somehow looks like crap on your fancy 47" TV but it just doesn't.  I know this because I know giant video nerds who have 50+" TV's and are absolutely fine with the game.

- Better games
- Dissapointing for some
- New IP

Without even playing the game, but seeing the trailers, and hearing developer journals, you see partisans for one system go all nuts for an exclusive that has a budget behind it, and they will jump on a bandwagon and push the game, as if the sales of their system of choice depended on it.  I have a feeling Alan Wake went through the same thing here.  The game HAS TO sell well and get great ratings.  It HAS TO outdo Dark Rain also.  If it doesn't the partisans feel shame over it.  So, without actually playing Alan Wake, the hypefest came over it.  Maybe Alan Wake falls in to The Conduit level of hype on here and elsewhere.

I say wrong time and wrong console
the game would've probably sold more on the ps3 (ex:heavy rain)
bcuz lately if a game isnt a shooter and no online it doesnt sale on the xbox

as for me I started to play the game but bcuz of lost planet 2 and smg2
I couldnt give it more time, so the game is on hold for now