Oh, I've also been renting Silent Hill 2. I must confess I'm a little disappointed on a number of fronts =/ I really wanted to like it, I really did but I find myself underwhelmed quite badly.
Firstly, James' voice actor. Absolutely awful...Resident Evil 1 quality without the laughably hammy dialogue to go with it. All the more noticeable in that a good deal of the other voices are at least halfway decent (unlike RE1).
Secondly, the combat is rubbish. Pressure sensitive buttons suck for running too. The lack of an autolock is pretty damaging considering the fixed camera angle and the lack of a 180 turn is pretty jarring too. Survival horror combat should be difficult, but in my opinion it should remove the means not the ability i.e. the combat mechanics should be flawless and make fo easy fighting back if you had the right tools, but you will never be given decent weapons so you're forced to think creatively and adapt attack strategies. For example with a weak plank weapon, weave in and out of monsters, closing for a quick strike before retreating. With the control system in place that's not really possible, not to mention the early monsters all vom on you anyway forcing you to stagger back (often out of range again) the sole saving grace is you can move while readying a weapon.
The puzzle logic is pretty dumb in some points too. Canned drinks to smush down rubbish? WHY NOT GRAB THE DAMN THING I CAN SEE IT RIGHT THERE! And why canned drinks? That's such a random thing to use. It was annoying because I knew I needed to force the thing down and I knew I'd have to pick it up from the trash chute outside, but I figured it'd be some kind of pole to poke it down rather than canned drinks which I thought might be a health item...
However, I do like where the plot is heading, I like the monsters and I like the atmosphere and the town. I'm going to persevere, but since it's a rental I won't be able to take as much time as I would like and will probably need to use a guide if I get stuck too long, but frankly that's ok, because the environments are too large to waste time faffing about backtracking in the hope you missed something.
Overall I confess to being pretty disappointed, of the 2 japanese horror games I've played lately, Project Zero 2 is definitely the superior IMO.