is definitely noticeable, and for me in a very distracting and offputting kind of way because it is done a bit cheesily.

The very first level did it ok but the rest of the time it looked like a cheap gimmick. 

http://www.gametap.com/grimm/episode_04.html 

Even if you don't like WoW, Blizzard's cinematics are always worth watching :)

http://www.wow-europe.com/wrath/intro.xml 

So why did they channel their own office and the empty lot behind their own office for the level design and overall look of the game? 

It was the best fit for the story, gameplay, and engine. I can't see anything more fantastical working very well. I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with doing a somewhat realistic setting in a game if it's done well and in F.E.A.R's case I think it was.

Also there was a lot more breakup in the game than people give it credit for. In addition to the much complained about office building crawl, there was a pretty nice tech section, some run down tenements, some good industrial stuff, and even a nice dock area.

I'd say it's pretty tough to make a game that has a wealth of interesting places without relying on some hokey Daikatana bullshit like you're a time traveller or something. 

the level design was atrocious, theres no two ways about it. It was hands down some of the worst I've seen.

It's one thing to have a realistic setting, another to have used what felt like te diablo2 level generator to randomly spice together pre fabricated rooms and corridors.

But the game itself is good. 

But the game itself is good

How can you say that the game was good but the level design was the worst you've ever seen? Isn't level design ideally the place where the game's bits and pieces come together as a cohesive whole? If you thought the A.I. for example, was good, wouldn't that mean that the level design facilitated it? If you thought the horror stuff was good, wouldn't the sequences have been scripted and paced by the designers?

The "bad level design" knock against F.E.A.R has always bothered me because the game reviewed really well across the board, sold very well, and people generally seem to really like it, so I don't understand where the criticism fits into that.

It's got a lot of right angles and generic industrial stuff going on, but I would say none of it is "bad" in the sense that the game overall was not boring and is generally considered to be quite immersive. Don't confuse realistic design (offices and warehouses *are* boring places by design) with bad design. 

How can you say that the game was good but the level design was the worst you've ever seen?

I haven't played FEAR but that sentence reminded me of Painkiller, which was fun despite having lackluster level design.

It's just unfortunate because (in the case of Painkiller at least) it could have been a great game with better level design, rather than merely "good". 

what he meant was the visual side of things, its just room corridor room and they all look the same.

As a gameplay space, each area is actually setup very well, and usually there are multiple entry points and routes for the AI to take which makes each fight different.

I actually really enjoyed fear, I never quite understood why it gets such a bad rap. 

sorry I should have clarified that, I was speaking plainly from a visual sense. Hence my comment about the d2 like level generator. But I do not agree that just because the level design was meant to be realistic that it had to be that repetitive and boring. Splinter Cell games have better looking maps and they are all about realism.

What made the game fun was the intensity of the combats, the usefulness of the weapons and the AI. And as daz said most the fights were setup well for utilising the AI. 

I only played the demo though but there certainly is a difference between realistic and boring/weak. 

the layout of FEAR's levels was 100% designed to work with the AI. The distribution of cover points, multiple entry and exit routes, corridor loops, size and shape of the spaces etc. etc. was purely made to create the combat experience that the gameplay designers intended.

The art direction is another thing, and yes it was fucking boring as hell. I wish people would stop confusing the two things. 

sucks. 

i'd say painkiller and fear are total opposites.

fear had shit visual design but good gameplay. painkiller and incredible visuals and boring gameplay. :P 

get those Painkiller maps to load into Fear, woo-hoo, win win.

I did love playing Fear exponentially more than I enjoyed Painkiller. Fear could get your heart beating with simple AI flank maneuvers, and those plain looking areas, in particular, I recall a basement near the start, could be creepy as hell. 

I noticed just then that in more than one place simnultaneously but also by pure coincidence two or more threads were "bigging up" AVP1.

Well I loved AVP1. The monster AI is pretty much the best I've seen, and not bad gameplay to boot.
Level design? (I liked it)

Shame AVP2 was so wank. 

i liked the office environments in fear. they had something going with that nice brownish plain style. The industry environments sucked a bit, though; too generic random pipe/grate systems? 

Both the gameplay and art in Painkiller were good (in my opinion), but the level design was poor to nonexistent.

You had good solid weapons and powerups, a good range of enemies with interesting behaviours... and an endless series of box rooms which did absolutely nothing to compliment or enhance the gameplay. Fail.

I don't actually know the details of the dev team, but if I had to guess I'd say the levels were made by artists from very basic plans provided by the game designer. They probably didn't have "level designers" at all. 

Some cool levels. Or was that the expansion? Or both? 

I didn't play all the way through it, but most PK levels I saw were literally like this:

1. Enter large box room. "Door" (ugly, out of place stone block that is) closes behind you.
2. Spawn 7 thousand waves of monsters, all of which charge directly at the player in aforementioned box room because there's no interesting combat terrain or any kind of AI scripting.
3. Defeat horde, "door" opens and you may exit the area.
4. Enter next area, go to step 1... 

that's how I remember PK too.

And personally I didn't think the monster design was all that great either. Like the endless boxrooms, they just seemed to be endless variations on the same monster design but with a slightly different model/skin to complement the aesthetic of the particular level. Sure there were some interesting ideas in there like the HP-sapping scythe thing, but without any decent AI it's reduced to 'just another basic melee weapon'.

Deathmatch was a blast. It also had bloody brilliant netcode. I never ever ever had lag in Painkiller. Once again the level design let that side of the game down a little bit though. 

AvP2 was heaps better than avp1. Better levels, better AI and better immersion. 

more cartoony, less moody

maybe its just me... 

I found AvP2 to better in pretty much all departments as well. 

Did have some well-designed levels - the 'venice' (made by someone who's never been there) level was excellent - manouvere through the city taking various routes with the sun dawning as you complete the level, changing the lighting. The bigger enemy's can pick up the smaller ones to use as human shields.

Levels like that did tend to be exceptions though.

I wouldn't say they had artists designing the levels, just inexperienced level designers who allowed themselves to be pushed around by the art team.