Controls were great: weapon switching and reloading was easy. Movement was easy. Difficultly level was good for me, as I'm not really a hardcore gamer. I started on "normal" and somehow ended up on "hard" towards the end, which I didn't think was that hard. The game flow was excellent, it just kept on going and the length was good. Engaging, constant, and easy to follow.
It was quite refreshing to not have ridiculously hard bosses every hour or so. Instead, there are levels where you are trapped and have to shoot multiple foes. This was more of an enjoyable challenge. Sometimes you get a boss which is just too hard and you spend 2-3 hours and multiple attempts killing it. This just become on exercise in frustration. For example, in Metroid Prime 3 on Wii, Mogenar is too difficult. Perhaps that just tells you something about my level of skill :-). But non-linear difficulty is frustrating for players. Mind you I should have another go now I've found that walkthrough. ;-)
Some of the weapons were a little similar. Not really the variation you get with Doom/Unreal, but usable and change your attack strategy. Climbing into the armoured shell and blowing things up was also fun.
I haven't played the first FEAR, but playing this has made me want to search for a copy.
