- Alternate Character Interpretation: One fan theory states that MacReady is actually a Thing that's flying to the mainland and helped Blake defeat the Whitely Thing, so as to divert suspicion away from itself. It would explain why MacReady survived for so long in the arctic climate and Childs did not.
- Anti-Climax Boss: The Whitley-Thing goes down very easily. You circle him in a helicopter, blow up the four barrels at his feet, and then shoot his body until he keels over. It takes less than a minute and there's almost no danger to you unless you really suck at aiming.
- Complete Monster: Colonel R.C. Whitley is revealed to be a power-hungry madman who sends two teams to investigate Outpost 31, resulting in the Alpha Team being infected and picked off by the creatures infected by the Thing. Whitley is revealed to be collaborating with, before taking control, of Gen Inc. to research the Thing, eventually isolating what is dubbed the Cloud Virus, which Whitley seeks to weaponize. Whitley infects himself after showing an immunity, and demonstrates that he is in control when he kills Dr. Faraday for trying to eradicate the virus. Whitley plans on distributing the virus and the infected creatures around the world through a fleet of planes. When foiled, Whitley reveals his new plan to use an evacuation team to spread the infection on a global scale, with him ruling supreme. A cold-blooded murderer with a god complex and seeking to use the virus for world domination, Colonel Whitley is metaphorically and—eventually, literally—a representation of the Thing as a human.
- Demonic Spiders: Quite literally so in the case of the Skullhead Things, which nearly always attack in packs, appear out of nowhere and escape by the bushel from larger Things after you burn them. If you aren't expecting them, they can quite easily party-wipe you, especially late in the game and combined with Walker Things. If you are expecting them, they can still do a fair amount of damage before being killed.
- Disappointing Last Level: While the second half of the game isn't bad, it notably feels a bit underdeveloped compared to the first, for instance the Blowtorch weapon stops appearing entirely, flash grenades are borderline non-existent and there's only a single Adrenaline syringe left in the entire game.
- Game-Breaker: In the third boss fight (which is a giant thing-tentacle hanging from the ceiling) there is seemingly no safe place for you to hide without getting hit by the boss creature, forcing you to keep moving around to dodge its attacks. There's actually a very easy way to prevent this however: stand literally right against it. Due to some fault in the programming it can reach anywhere in the room, except a foot or so in front of it.
- It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The remaster notably makes the game significantly easier (such as additional resources, no longer losing magazines doing a non-empty reload, more resources and buffed friendly AI) which can detract from the intended horror as while it *did* add difficulty settings, these purely affect damage and not any of the changes the remaster made to be easier). While most of the changes have been well received for fixing issues, some feel the remaster went too far, and the game is way to easy by comparison.
- Narm: Your squad mates' stress levels are supposed to provide tension and help set the tone of locations by having them react to things they see. A lot of that tension is deflated by how often they tend to react by vomiting, sometimes together at the same time, which not only is distracting, but a bit comical to see repeated.
- No Problem with Licensed Games: The title was very well-received upon release and was commercially successful, and in the years following its release has become a Cult Classic much like the film.
- Remade and Improved: The 2024 remaster by Nightdive Studios fixes the maligned scripted transformations for most of the minor characters, fulfilling the game's promise of Paranoia Fuel. Now squadmates can actually be infected by Thing attacks, and blood tests after battle are more important. Transformations that are scripted, like Collins', have events and enemy placement tweaked to make it less of a Diabolus ex Machina. Since you still have an Arbitrary Headcount Limit for your squad, the game balances out the survival of your team by having unnecessary replacement squad members be Killed Offscreen when you enter a new level.
- Scrappy Mechanic: Scripted infected. While the trust system was designed around the possibility of your squad being infected or not and being able to test them, the game had several instances where party members would become infected and turn even if you had just done a blood test and it came back negative, making it clear the game forced it for reasons unknown. It had the side effect of making players never bother using the blood tests, and made certain sections difficult because the game would rob you of your squad. The remaster completely removed it as a mechanic and only kept the story relevant transformation, which makes the system significantly better.
- Tainted by the Preview: A minor example, but some fans were worried about the extra resources advertised in the Remaster, feeling like the original game already provided too much ammo (as the player could reliably use the submachine gun for the entire game) and were worried the remaster would fall into the same issues as the BFG version of Doom³ where that version's extra ammo completely broke the balancing of the original. Thankfully, a patch would make the amount of health/ammo from crates be lowered on higher difficulties.
- That One Level: One stage late in the game has you going down a seemingly endless staircase. Sounds easy enough...except there are automatic turrets on every level (that can take up to five grenade hits to destroy), scalding steam vents, seemingly endless streams of scuttling creatures that pop out of dead bodies (and attack you from front and behind), and the medic, your only hope of surviving the stage, turns into a monster at random points. If you don't have enough health packs on you, or enough firepower, it's impossible to get through the stage. Though there is one way to make it easier, if you leave the medic near the top of the staircase and run back up to him to get healed instead of having him follow you, he doesn't seem to turn into a monster.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/TheThing2002
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