Amnesia: The Dark Descent (and, if you like it, Justine) - This is an absolutely
phenomenal horror game. It's made by the same company that did Penumbra, if you're familiar with that one, and its runs on much the same premise: You have no weapons. You have to make it through the place, find the answers you seek, solve the mystery, run up against horrifying monsters of every description...and have absolutely no way of defending yourself. It makes the whole experience so much more terrifying and rewarding, because you have to just
run quite a bit of the time. Amnesia adds the wonderful feature of absolute insanity. You play as a guy who is completely paranoid and a wee bit unhinged, who freaks out at anything abnormal, is scared of the dark, and starts hallucinating cockroaches when he's scared. This makes it even freakier and harder to make it through the game, but in a good way
The graphics are absolutely gorgeous; this game takes place in a Renaissance-era castle, so the lush furnishings are really awesome to look at. The physics are awesome too; very realistic, helping give you an immersive experience (which just makes things ten times scarier XD). The story is interesting enough to get you through as well, trying to piece together what actually happened in this place through notes and things you pick up along the way. I absolutely recommend this if you can handle the terror and the blood towards the end. (Torture devices. That's all I'll say.)
Unfortunately, that's the only recent horror game I've played; I have a very wimpy computer that can only play really old stuff, so I had to rely on a friend to play Amnesia. One I'm really looking forward to that's supposed to come out next spring is
Among the Sleep. It looks really good.