RE7 is definitely a good game, but I'm not quite sure about greatest ever. Lack of enemy variety, some rather glaring design problems (like Marguerite materializing from thin air when she grabs you before her first boss fight), jumpscares are extremely predictable, and the last third of the game is a generic slime monster shooting corridor fest.

I'm not sure which one I'd put as the overall better title, but Alien Isolation definitely scared me a lot more, probably as a result of the horror being almost entirely organic and the alien representing a consistent life or death threat at all times. Once you realize Jack and Marguerite only patrol a limited radius and won't follow you past there, it makes getting spotted more of a temporary nuisance rather than a genuine moment of fear.

The latest stats, VR still at 9.6%, currently 1.7 million registered players, 165k registered VR players. Still kinda weak showing with 915k headsets out there. Bunch of scared babies.

It's the same in Alien Isolation though. Once you realize how the Alien patrols and when he shows up it's not scary anymore. Plus it was really easy to hide from the Alien. I had the opposite effect, Alien became a nuisance, Jack freaking chased me through half the house then grabbed me through the wall in front of me again, damn!

The thing is, that's all scripted. From an AI standpoint, Jack was assigned to walk in what I think I can safely call lukewarm pursuit after the player, and then once the player reached a certain point, Jack is loaded into a hiding point behind the wall and then pops out to grab the player once they walk past. Perhaps this is just me being cynical, but once I've figured out what an AI's limitations are and how to abuse them, they become significantly less frightening. With Jack, I had him figured out by the second time I ran into him upstairs.

The alien does get more predictable later on; you can certainly begin to figure out how it works (game gives it a set area within which to search and it will randomly check places unless it notices something), but I still find it more frightening because, once it's in play, it's a threat that you have to treat realistically. With Jack or Marguerite, if I get spotted, I can just run a few rooms over and they'll stop following me. With the alien, that's not an option. You have to treat it like a genuine threat whenever it's around or you will die. Jack and Marguerite's AI is much more abusable than the Alien's, and I think that itself says a lot about the level of fear that the two AIs instill.

Except the Alien didn't heighten the fear for me, just boredom. It was easy to see when he was going to show up and then all you can do is sit under a table until he goes back to stomping around in the ceiling. With Jack and Marguarite you can risk fighting them (not a good idea on hard mode) stay quiet or use one of the escape routes.
It didn't help that Alien isolation had a game breaking bug which cause me to have to replay 2 chapters, where I figured out I could simply run past him into the next safe zone. The chapters with the alien in play were the weaker ones for me.

It might just be the VR making the difference. Alien in VR is probably a lot more scary too.

4 is best.

Yes it seems that the third is often neglected in the top RE lists Oh well, I am glad that I am not alone on this one

Definitely one of the better games for me personally in recent years, and I don’t just mean just in its respective genre.

While it’s debatable whether it’s the best RE game ever made a solid case can be made for that statement. Thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it and I didn’t even play it in VR. I can just imagine how much more immersive that experience would have been (As well as frightening.).

It had the perfect action / puzzle ratio, no place overstayed its welcome and it bought Raccoon City to life. Nemesis was also on another level. It's a shame it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

I agree with you. It is just a very solid video game, a real game with real gaming mechanics, not just a story with shoot´them´with´a´gun like so many video games these days,

It is SOLID all around well built. It is a beautiful thing to see, genre aside.