YMMV / UNLOVED

• Demonic Spiders: Clowns and Witches are the most-dangerous of the normal enemies because of their speed and the relentlessness of the former's attacks and the deadly abilities of the latter (Faceless and Doctors are comparatively harmless because they're so slow and their fireballs are linear). Any Rotten enemy counts as one of these, though, even Rotten Servants, although again Rotten Clowns and Witches romp home with the prize for "Deadliest enemy in the game", Clowns especially: while they can't One-Hit Kill you like Rotten Witches, the Witch's Face of Death attack can be evaded just by moving out of line of sight, while a Rotten Clown can rush you and beat you to death within seconds, even from full health and armour.
  • On Unearthly and Abyss modes, every enemy is one of these, as they all get the Witch's ability to summon groups of other monsters from another part of the level to their location i.e right in front of you.
• Game-Breaker: On the off chance you're lucky enough to get it from a Totem chest, the Tactical Goggles, which reveal the location of every enemy on the minimap. With so much of the gameplay centered around being able to keep track of how many enemies are spawning at once and where they are, knowing when something is sneaking up behind you or a huge mob is heading towards your position and you need to find a chokepoint to hold them off is an incalculable advantage. On the Sound of Silence challenge mode (where enemies don't make any sound) it's almost essential.
  • Among trinkets, anything that gives you lifeleech on your melee attacks. Lifeleech is the only source of recovery in the game that doesn't require you to pick up items (apart from Armor Regeneration, which is incredibly rare and hard to get) and just weaving in the odd swing with your kukri in between your shots can keep you hale and hearty without ever needing to pick up a single healing item, or even bother with armour if you have enough lifeleech and melee damage.
    • Melee in general is quite overpowered if you exploit it to the fullest. Stack enough melee-enhancing bonuses (not only damage but knockback and stamina regeneration) from your trinkets and you can easily slaughter Servants, Cutters, Nurses and even Butchers in melee by either one-shotting them or staggering them so they can't fight back before they die. This saves you incredible amounts of ammo, and combined with the aforementioned lifeleech making healing items unnecessary and armour redundant, it almost completely neuters the scavenger hunt aspect of the game.
  • Speaking of Armor Regeneration, though, if you can get your hands on a trinket that gives it to you (and good luck with that, it only appears on the tier 4 Bag of Teeth and Veteran's Combat Vest), it can make survival a snap. Giving you a few points of armor every time you kill an enemy, you can regularly emerge from a scrap with a horde of lower-tier enemies like servants and nurses with more armor than you had going in.
• Nightmare Fuel: Oh yes. Between the gloomy and cramped environments, unsettling soundtrack, and the horrific monster designs, there's lots to be unnerved and scared by. And there's no dialogue apart from the Doctors' distorted German, so amidst the gunfire, all you'll be hearing is the various horrible noises the monster hordes make as they shamble towards you to tear you apart. And then there's all the logs you can unlock with photographs, which can range from mildly disturbing to dementedly nightmarish.
  • Nightmare Retardant: On the other hand, certain challenges and loadouts can take the edge off, as you'll be shredding through hordes left and right. Even if you take a beating, some trinkets and items will let you recover health/armor fairly easily. There's even less horror if you're playing with other users (especially with voice chat). Another dose of retardant can come from occasionally seeing monsters stuck in T-poses or accidentally being caught in level geometry like staircases, leaving them easy pickings.
• Paranoia Fuel: The game provides frequent scares by how the audio for monsters is handled. Namely, they have no footsteps. Instead, the only indicator of their presence is either light shining from them (such as the Salem Servants' torches) or the noises they make (like the horrible groaning and gasping from a Demon Nurse). What makes it worse is that most monsters can use "Demon Speed", i.e. they suddenly speed up and zoom your way with no warning whatsoever, leading to frequent Jump Scares out of the blue.
  • The Punishment System adds another layer of paranoia and fright. The game's unique way of handling monster spawns is that it's all caused by player actions (opening doors, picking up items, etc). In the corner of the screen, in between item pick up notifications, there will be threatening and ominous one-liners varying by color (yellow/orange for Heat buildup, red for monster spawns). These serve as a warning that if you keep being greedy, eventually a crap ton of monsters will spawn... and you don't know where they are at first. So you'll be left wondering where the big swarm will be as you rush through the level, trying not to crap yourself.