Rather than try and make a quick buck out of cheap thrills, Dynamic Pixels and tinyBuild took the popular trope of hide-and-seek horror and twisted it into something new and creative. There is a great game buried here, as long as the development studio fixes the problems currently plaguing it... And if they can manage to really polish it, then the horror genre has much innovation to offer.

Hello Neighbor has a good idea made badly.

The basic concept is solid, but due to its bad implementation, the game is almost a total write-off.

Hello Neighbor is a frustrating slog through a gauntlet of illogical puzzles that rely on persistence and thoroughness far more than cleverness, observation, or ingenuity. The stealth is hit-or-miss, alternating between feeling too punishing and borderline irrelevant from act to act. Some clever level design and a clear talent for making me feel creeped out eased the frustration, but don’t present enough of a reason for me to recommend anyone put themselves through 15-20 hours of this. I wish I’d just stayed on my own side of the fence.

Unfortunately, only an amount of frustration and badly made game is hidden in the tempting package. For a good horror adventure, you must go elsewhere.

I honestly didn’t hate Hello Neighbor, but an interesting setup and good intentions don’t make up for sloppy design, unwieldy controls, AI that isn’t half as smart as advertised, and a myriad of other issues. A very specific type of player who loves finding secrets and proposing fan theories may be able to overlook Hello Neighbor’s problems, but most will want to bury the game in the backyard.

The game is embarrassingly simple in its gameplay, but at the same time it’s incredibly difficult due to a poor technical state and a terrible game design. [Issue#282]

Hello Neighbor has some interesting level design decisions, but the game itself feels like it's still in Early Access.

Hello Neighbor is a complete mess with tons of bugs, stupid AI and a confusing storyline. The performance is even worse than the demo version.

A highly problematic product, afflicted by big design errors and a considerable number of technical defects.

It’s a shame the final version of Hello Neighbor isn’t what we wanted it to be. The great concept is poorly executed, with plenty of issues, ranging from the physics to the AI or the puzzle design.

Frustrating, buggy and overly dependent on trial-and-error, this is a missed opportunity.

Hello Neighbor is unpolished to the point that it feels unfinished. The overpowered enemy A.I. makes the gameplay miserable; models and animations are stiff, and physics critical to completing puzzles are so woefully uncalibrated that much of the game feels like you’re stacking boxes and hoping for the best. The game falls so short of its genre companions that it’s hard to recommend it to anyone, in spite of its beautiful aesthetic. Hello Neighbor simply isn’t fun or compelling even when it’s working.

The concept for the game is great, level design is solid and the visuals are sometimes nice but the whole thing is painfully underdone. [02/2018, p.46]

Hello Neighbor is a game you persevere in due to sheer luck rather than any sort of actual skill, foresight, or cleverness. There's no catharsis, insight, or revelations waiting at the end of the ordeal, just a sort of uneasy malaise over what the images and environments near the end are meant to represent. As such, a simple, appealing concept is rendered inert.

Hello Neighbor is a stealth game for youtubers. It's really annoying and obviously unfinished and as such makes a great theme for a funny video. During gameplay I had three distinct feelings: boredom, discomfort and frustration. And sometimes anger when some flaws looked intentional. Avoid!

An interesting premise, a striking visual style, and a mysterious game world that's bound to keep the gaming community pondering on what's going on in here, Hello Neighbor had the potential to be an iconic classic. Instead, the final release is nothing more than an overpriced, clunky, and incomplete mess of an experience. It's a shame, really.

Hello Neighbor is incompetent and barely playable as a horror, stealth, or adventure game, in addition to being incoherent as a narrative.

An exemplary “YouTube shocker” of a game. Avoid at all costs.