Inner Chains

did i enjoy it? YES!
will you enjoy it? depends!
if you like nice graphics and the overall h. r. giger style (it's amazing!) you are in for a bloody good ride. quite literally actually. or at least for the most part that is as this game has numerous definitive weaknesses. see below for more info.
if you don't care much about all that eye candy and you prefer smooth gameplay, a deep story and an overall polished experience it's most likely you will be really disappointed. so don't bother, seriously.
long version:
at first it looked a lot like painkiller to me and i liked that idea big time. but it's not.
general movement is slow, you can't sprint for longer than five seconds and the enemies' AI is so dumb that the hostile plant life is way more dangerous and deadly. combat overall is really clunky and there's a total of three weapons in the game. you can find upgrades but they didn't seem to do anything for me.
the game looks pretty nice and its alien artwork (see what i did there?) is really ingenious. however even with a beefy gaming rig (i7 4770k, 16gb ram, gtx 1080, ssd) it feels kind of laggy most of the time and you get some serious stuttering when transitioning between areas.
i can't stress enough how much fun i had exploring everything and just looking at the scenery. it took me 7 hours to explore everything (ocd-grade exploration) and i loved all of it. however sometimes passages close behind you and you can't get back without loading the last checkpoint. meh!
the game is filled with graffiti and posters on the walls as well as a few pages for your journal. you can't read that (yet) as you need to "collect" letters for translation by touching certain monuments while you progress through the game.
it's a nice idea and it works but it's kind of half-hearted. the posters get translated as you collect more letters but nothing else. the wall graffiti stays in chinese and so does your journal and even the loading screen! at least you get what the journal says by looking at the drawings. so that's a plus.
the story was fresh & new and quite interesting. sadly it stays pretty superficial. you get a rough idea about what's going on but that's it. an environment this interesting asks for a lot more solid background info imho.
so that was a lot of talking for a game that most people won't bother with. and rightfully so.
it could have been a shining jewel of a game but it's more of a raw cut gem now. the devs dropped the game a while ago so it won't get the polish it needs and deserves and there won't be a sequel. i don't say this often but in this case it's really sad.
while i didn't encounter any major bugs the lack of polish and finesse really drags the game down.
get it on sale in case you still want to.

First things first: Is Inner Chains a good game? Hell no. It is clunky, slow, repetitive and short.
So why should you play this? - Because it's like an interactive H.R. Giger painting. The art design is absolutely awesome and the overall atmosphere is great. I would have enjoyed this a lot more as a walking simulator without any fights, to be honest, but the atmosphere alone is worth playing this.
The asking price is way too steep for what's being delivered, but for a fiver this could be one long afternoon of morbid surrealism.

After a mesmerizing first chapter full of screenshot opportunities, the game settles into a fairly unspectacular shooter that wins enough points with it's atmosphere to keep it in my recommended category.

While there are some not-so-great elements, for the most part this game provides a very enjoyable experience (though I can totally see why some might not like it as much as I did).
Positives:
-graphics- The game is truly beautiful and the environments and designs are quite clearly influenced by (and in some cases directly borrowed from) the work of Zdzislaw Beksinski. The backgrounds and the interiors, as well as the character/creature designs are just fabulous (and wonderfully grim, in a biomechanical way), from the various plant monsters, to the weapon/health refueling stations, to the tentacled vision bringing pod creatures. As a huge fan of Beksinski, I was instantly in love with the visual look of the game. Hell, having strange biomechanical creatures sprout from the surroundings to indicate checkpoints is such a thing of weird beauty, it deserves mention on its own.
-plot- While there are aspects that are a little heavy handed, there is something marvelously baroque and mysterious about the plot (even if it doesn't always pull together, and ultimately seems a tad rushed and forced, particularly in Chapter 4) and it largely lets you figure out what is going on through organic play.
-gameplay- This will be both a negative and a positive; while it is largely an enjoyable exploration of a twisted, dark world, some of the "gunplay" doesn't work as smoothly as it should and does get a bit cumbersome from time to time. It's much more successful as a walking simulator than a first person shooter (although that aspect isn't "bad" per se, just a little unrefined and even a bit repetitive).
-sound design/music- Perfectly suited to a game of this nature, and there is only one thing that really didn't mesh with Inner Chains, which is the narrator (see below).
Negatives
-voice acting- There is only one voice and that is the narrator, and damn, is he not all that great at reading his lines (at least in heavily, HEAVILY accented English), although with the somewhat ponderous and pseudo-portentous dialogue, a non-speaker is already against the 8 ball. Thankfully, this immersion breaking narration only appears at chapter beginning/endings.
-gameplay- It was mostly a positive, but there are some caveats; first and foremost, there is very limited variety for enemy types. This didn't bother me much, because the game is short enough that the limited enemy palette was of no concern compared to the awesome aesthetics of the game's environments. Second, the final, fourth chapter is way too long and convoluted compared to the other chapters, to the extent that it almost stopped feeling fun. Thirdly, the final boss encounter, while memorable in many ways, also felt quite anticlimactic and didn't live up to the build up that proceeded it (and the less said about the actual ending, once you beat the boss, the better......it's like they ran out of money or enthusiasm, or possibly both).
So, there are some down sides, and unfortunately they occur in the final stretches of the game so they are more likely to leave a bad taste in your mouth. However, all-in-all, I found the game far more enjoyable than not, and it is completely worth a buy (only when it's on sale, mind you; with the downsides not to mention its length, it is certainly not worth $20) for the artistic look and atmosphere of the game alone.

I enjoyed this game, it doesn't have a lot of concrete lore and it has a number of frame rate bugs (for me), + the way they lock you outta previous areas as you move forward can be a little irritating.
That being said the overall atmosphere, sounds and environment was very dark and exactly what I wanted. I'd say its definately worth a play but don't go in expecting a masterpiece -- also there isn't a very solid deep story, it's more about the journey and soaking in the environment.

Overall a very short game. First play through only last ~3 hr. with breaks. Got all but one achievements. might go back through and find the last one at a later date. Over all it is a walking sim with bad AI and FPS mechanics. I loved the art style of the game. Would lag randomly for seemingly no reason. If this goes on sale and you have nothing else to play go for it.

This is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. The style is gorgeous.
I also loved how the game immersed and treated the player. Absolutely brilliant!