I've been really impressed by Alone in the Dark's atmosphere, tech, and gameplay clips. The soundtrack also sounds excellent. It's pre-order collector's kit looked like the best one ever assembled. All things pointed to a great game.

IGN gave it a 3.5 / 10. Other review sites are being slightly more gracious, but not by much. What the heck happened?

Developer interviews talk at length about being able to make the game they really wanted to make. Did they want to make a derivative, clumsy, frustrating and buggy game? Really?

I guess it's one less we all have to buy or rent, and it's apparently the last big budget game Atari is going to do.... now of course it all becomes clear. Perhaps an upper-level executive played the game early and made that company decision rather quickly. Seems like management on this one had the right idea. Well, partly. The right idea would be to put it in the cooker another 6 months and fix all the issues.

IGN's video review is below, and it's worth a watch. I'll likely add a few others as well, because in this case perspective is needed. It's hard to imagine something so promising being such an utter failure.

ADDITION: Two other reviews.... TeamXBox 4.2/10 and GamePro 5/10

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why reviewers are so important, and why pre-orders are a genuine risk.