The gameplay was fairly unique and interesting, although I don't think I was very good at it. Controls were a little awkward for me, and it would've been nice to have more options if not the ability to remap. An interactive, slowly-introduced tutorial also would've been helpful; being given all the controls at once and immediately thrown into the gameplay made it difficult to get used to the controls. Especially since it's a permadeath game, so you don't have the luxury of retrying until you get a grasp on the controls/gameplay. I also ended up dying getting stuck in an alcove; no matter how many times I hit x, it didn't push the monster away. Not sure if that's a bug or not.
I didn't get much of the story as I died pretty early on, but what I did see seemed interesting enough, though at parts were more confusing than anything (mainly the orb). I felt there was too much dialogue (compounded by the fact the text was slow rather than instant), and I was starting to get impatient/frustrated by the gameplay being frequently interrupted by dialogue in the beginning. Some of the word choices confused me a bit (for example, the screen about wearing headphones -- I can't remember the exact word, but I remember being confused by what it meant), though nothing that really stopped me from understanding the gameplay/story.
The ambient sound (though jarring at parts as I could hear when it looped) and the graphical effects made it creepier. The monsters' initial appearance gave me instant anxiety. The sound effects all added to the horror, too.
And I just now noticed that some instructions are included in the screenshots -- maybe I missed it, but I don't think the game mentioned anything about dashing, so I didn't realize I could. I caught a glimpse of a green rectangle suddenly appearing/disappearing, so maybe I was accidentally dashing without realizing it? Unless it was a bug, which is what I originally thought it was.
Overall, the game was fun, had a great atmosphere, was anxiety-inducing, and fit the theme fairly well. I can't comment on the False Hope bonus challenge, as I didn't get very far, but it definitely uses Descent into Horror -- though more like Nosedive into Horror (not a bad thing!).