Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a well-oiled horror mechanism. It's a great sequel that will be loved by the old and new players.

A Machine For Pigs is an almost flawless exercise in lurking horror that’ll send shivers down your (wait for it) swine.

A cerebral and spooky sequel that expands on the franchise’s story and themes, while slightly dialing down the terror.

A Machine For Pigs is a terrific survival horror experience, a game that horror fans should not miss.

The blood curdling story which has you twisting between empathy and loathing is truly fantastic, and it’s one of the best reasons to put aside any fears you may have and play this great game.

Grand in ambition but focused in execution, A Machine For Pigs is a terrific slice of Victorian industrial horror that will stay with you even as you try to sleep with the lights on.

Incredibly tense horror with a smart story and great use of sound. [Dec 2013, p.72]

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs has its faults as a game, but as an experience it can’t be faulted. [Oct 2013]

Though its sharp fangs of resource management may have been dulled, in place of the swift bite is a deeper, more haunting world that will linger with me much longer than the original.

Played with one’s thinking cap on, A Machine for Pigs is sure to horrify even when it doesn’t frighten.

After an hour of 'easy' exploration, you welcome back the real survival horror of Amnesia.

A perfect clash of Dear Esther and Amnesia, focused on straining your nerves while easing - perhaps a tad too much - on the interaction and gameplay. [Issue#234]

Scary as hell, but not so much like its predecessor The Dark Descent - considered one of the scariest games ever made -, this Machine for Pigs is truly a terrifying Lovecraftian tale of Victorian and industrial horror, with unthinkable machines, mad doctors and more, but with some wrong design decisions.

Its systems are deeply simplified, its sense of dread less all-encompassing. But it still leaves a lasting impression. The horror it filled me with was more subtle and insidious, and it's not going to be out of my system for many days to come.

More of a side story than a full sequel, A Machine for Pigs is memorably dark, disturbing, and bizarre.

Does what Amnesia: The Dark Descent did, and then some. We think that’s a good thing. Our underwear (yes, we share the same pair of underwear) begs to differ.

This is a captivating adventure, but it's also a very dark and disturbing one that touches on depressing real-world themes and doles out psychological horror along with monsters and gore. Still, this gives the game added depth and a literary weight that elevates it well above much of the horror genre in general, especially in a game that arrives without much pretension and with a plot device about murderous pig-men.

Familiar design that's thankfully still thoroughly unsettling. You'll never look at bacon the same way gain. [Oct 2013, p.78]

The Chinese Room proves once again that it has wonderful, affecting stories to tell and can create environments that ooze atmosphere. The same could be said of some of the horror film genre’s best directors. However, A Machine for Pigs guides players along the bloody processing line too strictly, removing the impact of interactivity.

The best way to enjoy Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is to treat it like an interactive movie. Just don’t expect any scares in this otherwise impressive drama.

Quotation forthcoming.

Now it's a narrative-driven game we still recommend, even though there's little to be found of what made the original Amnesia such an outstanding survival horror. In fact, we don't really know if it should have been called Amnesia.

However while The Chinese Room have attempted to make their Amnesia a purer horror experience they’ve merely succeeded in removing all the actual gameplay along with the first game’s brilliant sanity meter.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs isn't as much of a game as its predecessor, and gets less frightening after a while. If you wouldn't have to change your underwear 17 times we'd even go as far as to describe this as an interactive novel. At those times the game shines with an intelligent and nauseating storyline. It's just a shame that gameplay elements from The Dark Decent were unnecessarily sacrificed for that.

It is not as terrorizing and suspenseful as the predecessor but A Machine for Pigs still has its moments, while telling a grotesque horror-story.

Focusing on the urge to survive into the emptiness of darkness, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs truly understands the meaning of fear. Even if it lasts only four hours, you'll get everything you want and need, from a rich, tasteful and clever horror story.

Join Oswald Mandus as he takes a harrowing journey through his creepy mansion. With its great presentation and well-written story, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs gets a lot right. Unfortunately, the game is marred by a lack of scares and puzzles that even a pig could solve.

The impressively eerie environments provide a convincing backdrop to the tale, and a few good scares and unsettling revelations mean that Machine for Pigs can still grind at your mind.

A Machine For Pigs may not appease fans of The Dark Descent, but it does offer a compelling entry into the genre, even if it's inferior to its predecessor.

A Machine for Pigs is a well made and impressive game with a thorough thematic design and atmosphere. As a horror game it is rather spartan yet brilliant in that it let’s your brain conjure most of its horrors. Unfortunately it comes with a rather numbing effect that makes later parts of the game feel more formulaic and not as scary.

If you want to be told a vexingly bizarre story presented with a real sense of style, The Chinese Room may have exactly what you want. If you're a massive survival horror fan who wants to be made to scream, however, you probably want to stick your snout in someone else's offal.

A very atmospheric game that starts out very strong with some genuinely scary moments that made me put down the game for a while. As the game goes on it sadly loses some of that momentum and some of its punch, but still offers a good narrative and an unsettling story.

Without gaming staples, every part of the design must be exceptional to keep the attention of the player and while Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs succeeds in many ways, its bloated story and linear, repetitive, environmental design hold this experiment back from being a screaming success.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is a pretty good game, with a well written story, good voice acting, an atmospheric musical score, suitably varied and eerie environments, and quite a few stomach churning and downright creepy moments. It never gets boring or frustrating, and there are no passages in particular that qualify as less than enjoyable. Unfortunately, though, it’s just not that scary. And that’s quite the let down for a horror game.

Mechanically, A Machine for Pigs deviates significantly from The Dark Descent, and this is where it's most disappointing. The Dark Descent employed several mechanics that ratcheted up the fear and tension, most notably the insanity system.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a good survival horror game, but probably not what many fans of the saga would have expected.

A Machine for Pigs performs the not inconsequential achievement of maintaining the soul of Amnesia. This is still a game that understands that real horror comes from disempowerment, and from the unseen, unknown and unexplained.

It doesn't strike a perfect balance between engaging gameplay and a compelling story but for a pig's tale it's still satisfyingly twisted. [Issue#140, p.108]

It is a definite step back from The Dark Descent, but even several steps back makes this better than almost any other horror game released in the past decade.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a step back from The Dark Descent. The gameplay consists of walking from one piece of the story to the next and sometimes it becomes boring. The developers wanted to create a virtual novella, and the result lasts for 4 hours. It's a pity, that a very interesting story isn't matched by an interesting gameplay. But don't get me wrong - The Chinese Room did good and created a unique world that mirrors the mind of the protagonist. The game gets you thinking, believe me.

A Machine for Pigs achieves exactly what it sets out to do, and weaves an interesting and engaging narrative around a core of pure terror. It has some shortcomings, and fans of the original may be slightly disappointed with the removal of certain features, but the game is still terrifying, immersive and well crafted.

The Chinese Room’s temporary stewardship of the series has resulted in an undoubtedly slicker experience, but one that comes at the cost of some of The Dark Descent’s memorable urgency. But there are as many gains here as there are losses.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs it’s another good horror game that can offer you some serious goosegumps and a very nice story. Unfortunately it’s also pretty linear and it lacks in terms of gameplay.

It's a heavy plot, wrapped in psychological terror, intricately-placed jump scares, and monstrous creations. It's worth experiencing, but make sure you turn out all the lights and grab your headphones to get the full Amnesia experience.

In A:aMfP the balance is off. There’s too much wandering around admiring the scenery and not enough stuff to do or scares to go around. But the plot is so good I almost wish they had released it as a movie instead of a game.

As much as I liked The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs feels more like a quick expansion than a full on sequel. Fans of the first game will enjoy this quick romp through a new environment, but with its short play time, no replay value and removed mechanics, I still have to recommend a price drop.

Ultimately Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is a beautifully atmospheric experience and one which manages to stay creepy all the way through, if not scary. It can get bogged down in its own themes at points, leading to a final third, whose society-wide commentary is difficult to invest in or connect with, but when there's a lightness of touch it works splendidly.

A superficially-twisted, Dear Esther-like game of linear exploration punctuated by flowery narrative - but scary, it is not.

Terror is back with A Machine for Pigs. Its story is a little bit disjointed at times, but it knows how to be moving as much as unhealthy. The great sounds let us forget about the defects of this new Amnesia: the engine is getting old, the gameplay is too simplified and the game is even shorter... but fear prevails!

An experiment that has got out of its developers' hands, and that is too much for them. Amnesia along with Dear Esther are the inspiration here, but it's not played well enough like in those games. If you've never played Amnesia, and you would like to take a look at a small sample of it, A Machine for Pigs is worth it. If you have, consider your purchase carefully (or wait for a discount).

It isn’t as nerve-shreddingly terrifying as its predecessor, but A Machine for Pigs purveys a different kind of horror, revelling in the power of suggestion rather than the substance of real threat.

The beginning of the game is great and the story gets darker by the minute, but the immersion, mood and tension fall to pieces when you face grotesque, poorly animated enemies. [11/2013, p.80]

Atmospheric storytelling of the highest order, but the game itself is often a chore to play and abandons too much of what made the original so successful.

Encrufted as it is with uninteresting puzzles, murky visuals, and self-defeating enemy encounters, A Machine for Pigs's better ideas end up just as thoroughly buried as Mandus's diabolical factory.

A Machine for Pigs gets rid of some of these scare tactics and leaves you with a diluted experience that’s neither frightening nor as memorable as the first. Since the darkness is never a problem anymore and your threats are almost non-existent, you might wonder if there’s anything to be afraid of at all.

A Machine for Pigs is like a fully automated haunted house ride suffering a power outage. The carnies sure do their best to keep the tension up, banging against the girders from the outside and shooing some freak show attraction through the corridors every once in a while. The ride's boss even throws sinister letters over the paper mâché wall for you to read. Well-written as they are, you even like the story that they were going to tell you. But you just can't help but hope that somebody would finally find the god damned breaker box to get this whole thing going for real.

When at its best, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is every bit as capable of scaring the pants off of horror-seeking players as its predecessor. But uneven pacing, a nonsensical story, and a general lack of danger or risk breeds a sense of detachment that by the end didn’t give me chills–it just left me cold.

With problematic pacing and a complete lack of the horror element -that was the highlight of the first game- A Machine for Pigs didn't meet our expectations.

A Machine for Pigs takes Amnesia's formula and shows us how to screw it up. The idea had huge potential, but it's squandered on what frankly is a cheap and uninvolving game. This was an extremely disappointing experience.