Well, I'm not much for RTS games, and I decidedly HATE survival-horror games... so, I probably wouldn't play either. Why not try a space-sim instead?

OP, Obscure is a really good Silent Hill clone set in a high school. I've played the Xbox version, not the PC one.
I'd go for that one, if you like survival horror. The xbox version is probably better, though. The game is especially notable for being the first survival horror game that was two players.

I have plenty of space sims of varying types. I also have racing game, traditional RTSes, RPGs and the like, so the choice is most certainly out of the 2 games I listed. But thanks for the input.

Hmm, been tempted by both myself but I'm leaning towards Republic, just in the mood for something like that. A mate of mine who's a survival horror nut said obscure is good but not the kind of thing that stands up to repeated playthroughs but I find replayability to be a very individual thing
Maybe make the decision based on which games have the best extras?

The bonuses for both games are comparable and to be honest, I probably wouldn't replay either of them for several months/years after first completing them (or at least playing for a substantial amount of time).
Hmm, how's the character movement in Obscure? Is it like Resident Evil/the original Tomb Raider games where left/right rotate the character? If so, then I'll most likely opt for Republic as that style of movement has never sat well with me -- it's the main reason I was never able to finish any of the original tomb raider games (the timed puzzles always tripped me up due to that movement style).

Even if I liked the concept of Obscure, survival-horror in a teenage horror movie universe, and also the co-op mode, I admit that I've been disappointed.
Maybe it's because of the too common and unsurprising design of the monsters, maybe it's because of the (voluntary) lack of depth in characters, I don't know. Anway, it's far far away of Silent Hill, or even the old Resident Evil.
Haven't played Republic: The Revolution.

Just FYI, ObsCure has a demo out that works in Vista x64, so you could try it out. Republic also has a demo, but it didn't work on Vista x64.

Eh, I tend to disagree. SH is a markedly better game, but as far as the genre goes, Obscure is pretty good (believe me, I was a surprised by that as anyone). The use of light was a good idea, too. Does it borrow a page from the SH playbook? Yep. But it does a pretty good job at it. Better than SH4 did at being a SH game. I digress.
Play Countdown Vampires or something to get an idea of a bad survival horror game - there are lots of them. Plot development has never been a big part of the genre. Neither have decent controls, at least until around SH2 and RE3.
On the other hand, I don't think either game is an optimal intro to their respective genre. Both niche games. I've played pretty much every survival horror game since the ps1 on the console and PC (excluding maybe the D series). Your less survival horror inclined gamer new to the genre may be better served by a console game like Silent Hill 3 or Resident Evil 4. Incidentally, there are PC ports of some SH games. In short, if you don't like Survival Horror, Obscure won't change your mind. If you do, it's a solid example of the genre.

I've not said that Obscure was a bad survival horror, just that I disliked monsters' design and story.
And about story, SH1 and SH2 have both a good story, much more complicated than it can appear at first sight.
All I want to say concerning survival horror games: on one hand, you have the classic universe (Resident Evil with zombies), and on another hand you have a more subtle and artistic universe (Silent Hill with nightmarish freaks).
And since the success of both franchises, you have between them, survivals who pick stuff in RE, stuff in SH, and mix that.
Sometimes in can be good, sometimes it can be just bad, and sometimes it can be not so bad but just unsurprising. I tend to put Obscure in this third category.
So I just say that if you want something *new*, surprising, you might be disappointed with Obscure. If you just want a standard survival, you might enjoy it.

I would go for Republic, although I didn't play it yet... In other words: I would avoid Obscure. Dunno if it's more fun on consoles, but the PC version's controls really suck ass.. That killed all my enthusiasm for this game.

4 was never a Silent Hill game, just advertised as one (I'm being literal).
As for the decision..I found Obscure nigh on impossible to set up properly with a controller...
That aside, I'd go for Republic...it seems very rewarding if you're willing to invest the time to learn it. Though I haven't played Obscure beyond about ten minutes (controller thing)..but it seemed not bad at worst..and the co-op is a cool feature.
Also, I think we should set up a thread for these posts..

I think you're only somewhat correct, though I think we probably more or less agree about Obscure, if only in our conclusions. Long story short - Obscure is a videogame "B-Movie". But it's a good b-movie. Like I said, if you like the genre, you'll probably like it, if you don't - not going to change your mind. I'm not of the opinion that a game has to be startlingly innovative to be good.
That said - survival horror isn't mostly just SH and RE, though those are probably the most successful franchises (at least in NA, RE isn't that popular in Japan relative to NA). Survival horror has its roots in American Adventure games, misc Japanese games, Japanese Horror and Manga, Psychological/Body Horror (e.g. Jacob's Ladder, Alien and the work of H.R. Giger, Tetsuo) and Existentialist Philosophy. Those are pretty diverse technical and ideological influences and there are lots of different games and series to match those diverse influences. Unfortunately, I know some regions do not receive localizations of many of these games.
There are other quite notable franchises besides RE and SH (Fatal Frame, Clock Tower) that have extremely unique styles.There are also relatively unexplored FP Survival Horror games like Whiteday and Hellnight/Dark Messiah. There are games like Clock Tower and Haunting Ground where you have virtually no weapons and are primarily running. There are even games like Parasite Eve and Koudelka that are RPG/Survival Horror hybrids. Some of these games (Parasite Eve, Fatal Frame) even sold quite well.

I could see that. It is a console port.

To add to the excellent Clock Tower series there was also D, D2 and Deep Fear. There are far more flavors of Survival Horror out there than people realise.

Everybody vote for them...and Enemy Zero....