I played through the first 2 chapters on medium and it felt easy because I could kill enemies in two shots and be handed a ton of ammo.  The game is excellent but why is this declared to be scary by so many websites and gamers?  Am I not far enough in the game, or just not appreciating the creepy atmosphere enough?  Anyway what are your top 5 scariest games (they can scary just for being terrible games too)

Mine are:

5.  Doom 3 and Resident Evil 4 (tie)

4.  Silent Hill 4

3.  Condemned

2. Silent Hill 2

1. Resident Evil

You play Condemned 2? It was scary enough even with a kickass battle system, think if it still had Condemned 1's system O_O; even then I felt it was scarier then 1 by a fair margin.

to be honest. i think it is the only game that is remotely scary

Dead Space was a great survivor horror game, actually managed to surprise me with it's atmosphere, and the fact that it made me remind my favourite Horror movie of all time, Event Horizon.

That being said, it doesn't come nearly as close as to the horror of Enemy Zero for the Saturn, you wanna play a game that is gonna scare the s*** out of you? then really get that game. You play alone, as a defenseless woman stranded in the middle of a space ship, invaded by invisible aliens (that's right, invisible, you cannot see them, you can only hear them, and only when they are ready to attack you) and the only weapon that you get to confront them, is a sonar gun in the final 30 minutes of the game.
You have to do the whole game (12 hours of it) running like hell because of an enemy that you cannot see and that can kill you very easy. That my friend, is terror XD

Eternal Darkness was the scariest game i've played. Resident Evil was predictable. Still waiting for Fatal Frame 4 to come over because Japanese ghost girls are scary as fuck.

Great game but I have not played any games I thought particularly scary. Also the game will get a bit tougher, later enemies take more damage but your weapons get better as well so your still going to be dropping them without too much effort.

No, Dead Space isn't the scariest game of all time, not by a long shot. Some people are in a bluster about it because it's a new survival horror title. Someone mentioned Enemy Zero and I fully agree with that statement. Enemy Zero is one frightening game, same with Fatal Frame, Silent Hill (especially SH2 and the room, I love the idea that even your home isn't a place of sanctuary) and early Re games and the remake. Dead Space was alright, but nothing exceptional.

Max Payne is scarier then Dead Space.

Walking those twisting lines of dream blood with constant screams and howls in the background really gets to you after a while.

I thought the original Condemned was pretty scary. Such a demented atmosphere and the lack of ammo with reliance on melee combat made it very tense. I never played the second so couldn't really comment.

I didn't think Dead Space was very scary TBH. It was an awesome game but scary it was not.

Play it on hardest difficulty. Baddies kill you in a few shots, there are a lot more of em, and the ammo isn't nearly as easy to come by.