At the beginning, I felt that the game had a very Silent Hill vibe to it; mostly due to the music and atmosphere that was provided in Act 0. As I engaged in Act 1, this feeling was lost somewhere in the mix. I felt that the intended horror and atmosphere was masked by time-filler puzzles that never seemed to have much of a point to them. At least in Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Fatal Frame, etc., your objectives serve a purpose. However, this is not the case in DreadOut.
You also start the game with absolutely no indication of where to go, what to do or how to play. There's zero hand holding, which can be positive... but when you're supposed to be using a camera to take pictures of ghosts to kill them, and you keep dying within 5 minutes of the beginning of the game, it may deter some players.
The scare tactics seem to wear thin quickly, as the monsters become less horrific and more predictible the further you get into the game. You spend almost the entire first act within a very small school, with very few items to collect and puzzles to solve. You spend more time solving these small puzzles and running around than you do actually encountering ghosts. Overall, it takes about two hours if you actually explore everything.
Act 2 was unfortunately worse than Act 1 in the fact that it had fewer ghost encounters and fewer puzzles. Most of the time during this latter act is spent walking around and watching minor cutscenes.
Quite honestly, and a little sadly, DreadOut is one of the better horror experiences that I've come across in the last few years, and for that reason I am going to recommend it. It's better than the flood of Unity horror key finding simulators that are erupting onto Steam at this moment. Although, I wouldn't buy it at the full price. I was fortunate enough to get it on sale for about $5.00.