The first tags that come up on the Lust for Darkness Steam page are Sexual Content, Nudity and then Horror, which is a bit misleading. This title is a horror game, not a porn game -- and a good one for players who don't mind story taking the helm.
Lust for Darkness was a Kickstarter project with a lot of ambition and the elements to make a great series. Unfortunately, this game received some poor reviews through unrelated comparisons and expectations of it being heavily sexual. There are a few reasons why players should give Lust for Darkness a chance, especially since there is a promising sequel on the way.
It's a Lovecraftian horror of its own that centers around a cult worshipping a cosmic god from another dimension and the cult's desire to enter it. It follows a similar pattern to games where Cthulhu is the focus, but here the developer, Movie Games, created its own Lovecraftian deity and lore surrounding it. The cult refers to it as a god of lust -- which is where the mature content comes in -- but as with Cthulhu's followers, enlightenment comes at a big cost and nothing is quite what it seems.
The story follows Jonathan Moon, whose wife, Amanda, goes missing. A year later, a note turns up from her saying she was kidnapped and is being held at a specific address, asking him to help her get away. Jonathan turns up at the mansion to find the cult preparing for an event to open the way to the other realm. He must proceed around the mansion and the other realm to avoid danger, find his wife and escape.
There are small sections where there is sex depicted, but it's not what Lust for Darkness is all about. Lust is simply the theme; players will spend more time in the other dimension, solving puzzles, learning lore and unravelling the story. It's short and on the rails but Johnathan can die if players aren't fast enough or if they go down the wrong path. The components to build interesting lore are all there.
Players who like to find notes and items in horror games will get a good amount of backstory to three different threads within the plot. The main story is simple, but these extra notes give it depth and build a world that establishes the core components of the upcoming sequel, Lust From Beyond.
The Lust From Beyond: Prologue demo ties a lot from the previous game into the next. Even small things like dialogue that some may have overlooked have meaning. So far, the sequel seems to be building a broader picture and adding more in-depth gameplay.
Many compared Lust for Darkness to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, although the only similarity is the ability to pick things up and lose sanity. However, the developers seem to have taken these comparisons to heart and are adding deeper gameplay to the sequel.
Lust From Beyond is adding health, better sanity mechanics, a lantern and bigger puzzles to make it more like other big horror games. Lust for Darkness is very on the rails. For the most part, the player is exploring and solving puzzles. There are a few occasions where Jonathan has to run like hell, not stealth around objects for 20 minutes, to escape danger. It's kind of refreshing to see a horror game where the mechanic for danger is to run away, among the hundreds of stealth or survival-based games.
Some may find the linearity boring, but this game is about the story and the sequel is stepping both areas up, making it worth playing this one to get better context.