WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

Alan Wake ended with our hero freeing his wife from the dark place but only in exchange for himself.  “The Signal” picks up right where the main game left off.  Wake is again fighting through Bright Falls, but not quite as you remember it from before.  Just when you think you might have a grip on things, the environment changes.  You’ll go from the diner straight into the darkness of the woods.  The Taken are still there, but now you must fight them alone in this dark place (well… almost alone).

The gameplay is basically identical to the main game.  Use your light and weapons to defeat the taken.  However, in the dark place, Wake’s perception of reality is skewed.  Hence, he acquires ammo and tools by dispelling the darkness from the words he sees (much like in the last part of the main game).  It’s very straightforward.  Shine your light on the word “flare”, and you get a flare.  Some words actually have physical effects, such as “boom”, which add a whole new way to combat the Taken.

The visuals are basically identical to the main game.  Thankfully, there are no cutscenes featuring the horrendous facial animation.  The televisions all project images of you talking to yourself (it’s a key theme in this expansion), and the animations for those are handled quite well.

“The Signal” is short.  It runs about as long as any episode from the main game.  I took my time with the first go-round.  That took just over two hours.  It is possible to speed through it in less than an hour.  The final fight is arguably more difficult than the end of the main game (unless you conserve ammo for a certain weapon).  Like the main game there are collectibles and achievements that give the content some added replayability.  Also, just like the main game, it left me eager to see what Remedy has in store for the next episode: “The Writer”.  Having nabbed “The Signal” for free, I am not about to complain about value.  I would even say it is worth the 560 Microsoft points it would cost to get it.  Basically, if you like Alan Wake, you will love “The Signal”.  So dive in.  It’s not a lake.  It’s an ocean.