Two games I’ve played recently, Bioshock and Dead Space. Neither have scared me. A couple have startled me, when let’s say a necromorph or splicer leapt up at me when it looked dead, but not scared me. According to Wiktionary, the fancy man’s dictionary, the definition of frighten is: To disturb with fear; to throw into a state of alarm or fright; to affright; to terrify.
They’ve startled me, in a brief installment of fear, but not frighten me, in a continued state. Maybe I’m just too dead inside to be frightened, or maybe I’m not absorbed into the game enough. Probably the latter. Because when I played Bioshock, or play Dead Space, especially Dead Space as it’s third person, I don’t feel like i’m there in the game, I feel tuned out, because I’m looking over someone’s shoulder commanding him. If my character is low on health, i’m not worried because I know I can just load if I die. 
Bioshock as a first person, is slightly different, but in general it wasn’t frightening. It was definitely confusing though, when Andrew Ryan [Warning: MASSIVE, GARGANTUAN SPOILERS FOR BIOSHOCK] makes you kill him, honestly, what’s the point and why? The script was good too, but not scary, because I knew had I the superhuman powers to melt everyone in my path and enough placcids to turn a goat into some biochemical super mutant. [/END OF SPOILERS.]
I now must describe a typical scene is bioshock, as Imageshack won’t let me upload pictures. 
Dead Big Daddy. 7 Medkits, 7 Plasmid syringes left. Enough ammo to take on the Kremlin. $300. Easy, easy stuff. Especially once you get the chemical thrower, and some electric gel, Big Daddies are as easier then having mutually consented sex with a bagel.
Dead Space at the moment, I’m on chapter 5, just starting, so the best bits are to come apparently. There have been some brilliantly atmospheric bits so far, setting the scene. The scene in Chapter 2 where you slowly go down stairs, hearing a dulled repeated knocking sound, expecting a necromorph to leap up and start slashing your face into a bloody pool on the floor, is flawlessly done. When you finally turn that corner to see what’s causing the knocking sound, is a scene I won’t forget because of how well it was done.
However one thing I have noticed I’ve been doing in dead space is to constantly hold down the scopes whenever I turn a corner, just incase. That doesn’t constitute fear does it?
If you spend most of a game, or indeed all of a game, lurching between interested excitement and smiling comfort, it’s not scary. It isn’t scaring you, I mean. It’s hard for a game to strike that balance, though, between making it too easy and just raping you constantly.
Recently, if you get that balance right, the Escapist accuses you of Lying, and auntie pixelante accuses you of “hand-holding”. I haven’t been really scared about anything in ages. The whole genre should be renamed, across all mediums, to “darkly satisfying”.
try http://hotel626.com/
it’s fucking scary, especially if you turn the lights out and the volume up
I havent seen anything really invoking fear, well ever i suppose. Yeh ive had short frights, Ravenholm springs to ming there, but never have I felt scared.
Maybe its time you play STALKER + OL mod.
or wait for Call of Pripyat.