It's always been 'boo!' moments that made it scary. Things bursting through glass (sup crows) or oven man in RE4. Older RE's used to be a bit more confined and shorter on resources, along with less saving etc.
Since RE3 the combat got a lot more attention, and the excitement was mostly gotten from having to deal with a lot of enemies. The exciting bits were kinda like mercenaries, just frantically trying to kill things and survive. RE has never really instilled paranoia the way games like Silent Hill, AvP or Project Zero did. Which is a-ok with me, but RE6 could stand to have a bit of a revamp, just like RE4 shook things up and kept it all fresh.
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