Your name is David Leatherhoff, and you're addicted to a strange drug. Lately you have started to experience illusions, dreams picking at your deepest and darkest fears. Finally, you go to Markland Hospital, seeking help. First, however, you make a stop into the bathroom, where another bottle of pills awaits you, standing out like a beacon in the night in your depraved eyes. When will it all stop?
Afraid of Monsters is definitely one of the top horror mods on ModDB. The mod manages to hit a perfect balance between action, jumpscares, and psychological mindf**ks that manages to make the mod both fun and terrifying at the same time. I would recommend this to any fan of survival horror games. Aside from the atmosphere, the gameplay itself is fairly true to its Half-Life roots, with similar weapons, (albeit a nice variety to choose from, as well as occasionally forcing the player to choose between certain weapons. For example: do you take the shotgun and enjoy plentiful ammo at the cost of rate of fire and long range power, or do you take the Uzi, which occupies the same weapon slot, and enjoy massive power at all ranges at the cost of relatively rare ammo?) gunplay, and encouraging exploration.
All of that said, I really wish I could have given this a 10, but there are still a few glaring flaws. The worst of which was one game-breaking bug I found about halfway through the game: one particular elevator randomly stops working and if you try to enter it, it will freeze you in place until you reload a save.
Thankfully, that's the only major bug I've found. However, there are a few odd design choices that made me scratch my head a bit: ammo placement being a big one. Like a lot of survival horror games, you are almost constantly ammo starved, forcing you to choose your battles. However, this does not pair well with the occasional "zerg-rush" enemy ambushes, often creating brick-wall segments where your only choice is pretty much to cheat or reload a much earlier save.
Another flaw is not entirely the modder's fault: The Half-Life 1 flashlight is absolutely awful. However, I really wish the modder had planned for this, especially in the late game where there are pretty much no light areas.
Flaws aside, I love this mod and would recommend it any day of the week as one of the top survival horror mods on this site.