History YMMV / Painkiller

** To give you a good idea about how ''frakking scary'' the Asylum is, one half of the enemies are zombies without hands or feet that leap at you from across the room if you don't kill them fast enough, the other half are giant, screaming, glowing Frankenstein things that pop out randomly from doorways and rooms, and an extra 1% are ghosts that phase in and out of walls at random and are invincible. Keep in mind the level's challenge is to only use the Painkiller, either forcing you to launch it and lose any melee options for a good amount of time, or charging up and slicing said horrifying monstrosities up...for a better idea see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maksFc5LJ0I these]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEgXo9_md3E&feature=related two]] videos.

** ''[[http://bd.baldurk.org/573#title Animal Farm]]'' in ''Overdose''. So it's a creepy farm-cum-slaughterhouse, sure...but then you're attacked by suicide-bombing demon chickens, cyborg cows in bondage gear, reanimated butchers with sawblades and cow heads hanging on their neck, and find bloody scribbles on the walls reading "please i'll be a vegetarian" and "i'll join PETA"...and THEN the level segues into a fast food restaurant named ''[[IncrediblyLamePun Last Food]]'' with a host of clowns attacking you. And this was supposed to be scary?

* ScrappyMechanic: One thing that almost ''everyone'' agrees on is that it takes ''way'' too long for souls to emerge from the corpses of slain enemies, and if you don't collect them they disperse way too quickly, meaning a lot of time spent sitting around the cooling corpse, twiddling your thumbs while you wait for the soul to appear.

* ToughActToFollow: The entire series got worse and worse after the first game, as each of the differing developers that followed after People Can Fly ignored(or simply didn't understand) the subtleties and blatancies that made the original Painkiller ''so good''. As a GameSpot review for Resurrection puts it:

* NightmareFuel: The aforementioned [[AbandonedHospital Asylum]] and [[OrphanageOfFear Orphanage]]. [[TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste We cannot stress this enough.]] It's like [[VideoGame/ThiefDeadlyShadows Shalebridge Cradle]] lite.

* ScrappyLevel: Every individual release so far seems to have one:
** ''Underworld'' in ''Battle Out Of Hell'', for its rail shooter section, combined with the extremely difficult card condition (kill every enemy in the level), which becomes {{Unwinnable}} if the player misses a single enemy during the rail segment. Since the very beginning and end of the section leave no room for error, you can expect to replay this segment at ''least'' ten times.
** ''Dead Marsh'' in ''Overdose'', for its near-impossible melee-only card condition (in a level filled with insta-death pits, flying monsters and tentacles that can hurt you even before its animation plays out).

* FirstInstallmentWins: The first game is by far the most respected by fans and critics. While the [[MissionPackSequel first expansion]] got a [[SoOkayItsAverage lukewarm reception]], and everything else is considered to have chronic {{sequelitis}}.

* {{Narm}}: [[https://youtu.be/OxPtcawzKU8?t=2m23s Daniel's reaction]] to [[spoiler: Eve's soul being taken by Death]].

** It gets better: in Battle out of Hell, with the right combination of cards, you can have the actual demon morph [[UpToEleven on steroids]] whenever you need it. Three times.