I think a lot of "old school video game horror" games make the collective mistake of getting into the horror too soon.
I think many of them would be more effective if they let you at least understand the "intended" gameplay loop before making something go wrong. By simply going wrong from the start the knowledge it's a horror game remains at the forefront of our mind. We never get that chance to let our guards down and accept the fake N64/PS1/Source game as a real experience that exists outside of the horror, we're always expecting the well animated corpse or the crying to show up. The sudden glitch effects don't register as a thing to be concerned, it just tells us the ride is in motion now.
Give us just one level or quest to at least reach near completion and then get scary, don't make it obvious either, make us question when the game actually started showing it's hand, maybe even question if it's showing it's hand at all or we're just expecting it.
myhouse.wad is such a good angle on it, the way it gives you just a few things that hint at greater parts of the mod, then cuts it off with the normal second level before it actually starts getting weird, you've got plenty of time to get comfortable before the horror starts, so when it does start it can catch you off guard.
Dunno where I'm going with this, just let down by a few games of this type and wanna ramble about why.
