Contested Sequel: Requiem has been criticized for its lack of monsters and effective scares, however, it has also been praised for its creative puzzles.
Fan Discontinuity: The Requiem expansion according to many fans. The ending of Black Plague is self-sufficient, and Requiem feels more like a weird Portal ripoff with tacked-on closure to some side plots, than a proper Penumbra game. While preserving the horror and Mind Screw atmosphere of the first two titles, the absence of a real physical threat to the player kills much of the fanbase's interest.
Phillip also agrees to willingly incinerate Red at the end of Overture to free him of his suffering. But after he hears Red's gruesome last screams and pulls the key he needed from Red's ashes, he nearly suffers a Heroic BSoD.
Retroactive Recognition: A Video Game example. After Amnesia: The Dark Descent did so well both critically and commercially, many of Frictional's newer fans have discovered the Penumbra series and raised it to more mainstream recognition from its humble indie roots.
Chemical Storage in Overture. It's not just because you'll be chased by a worm through doors you'll have to shut behind you, through barriers that will make you stop and take time to break them down, and over pools of deadly acid that require jumping and box pushing to avoid injury. It's that there's Shmuck Bait in the form of a metal barrier that tempts you into thinking it can hide you from the worm. Worse, at the end of the area you might think it's possible to have enough time to turn the valve and open the steel door, but in reality you're supposed to cause a cave-in.
The spider caves in Overture is one of the most annoying areas in the game, you are being chased by several spiders that can be difficult to hit and can overwhelm you in numbers. They can also outrun you so you need to block the passageways with boulders.
The Woobie: Poor, poor Red... trapped in the mine as a young age of 14, alone and without anyone to talk to. Though he had many books to keep his mind occupied for a while, he inevitably falls to madness and becomes afflicted with the Tuurngait Virus, which prevents him from taking his own life and prolonging his miserable existence. Still, he holds on to just enough sanity to help Philip through the mine in a bid to finally end his life. Red spends his last moment screaming in agony as he's burned to cinders... at the very least, it was temporary compared to living on for many years in isolated torment.
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