Simple question:

will there be any option to remove or replace the spiders/their models in this game?
As someone who has a pretty hefty arachnophobia the fact that spiders will jump right in your face alone hinders me from buying this very promising looking game.

Not that I know of, but you could always use this game to help you conquer your fears.

I despise spiders as well. If it's really going to bother you I would email the developers and maybe they'll accommodate?

No offense intended, but as I am sure you can imagine with the number of phobias out there this could easily get out of control. Just to name a few that might be affected by this game:

Achluophobia – fear of darkness
Agrizoophobia – fear of wild animals
Ailurophobia – fear of cats
Astraphobia – fear of thunder and lightning
Chiroptophobia – fear of bats
Decidophobia – fear of making decisions
Hydrophobia – fear of water
Hylophobia – fear of trees, forests or wood
Murophobia – fear/dislike of mice and/or rats
Necrophobia – fear of death and/or the dead
Spectrophobia – fear of ghosts and phantoms

Do you see how this would easily spiral out of control to the point where there is no game left if the developers tried to accommodate phobias?

I think the answer to this question is like any other game...if the content bothers you then don't play it. Simple as that.

Well I take offense ;)
Arachnophobia is the most common of all phobias. Every 5th men and every other woman suffers from arachnophobia.
I myself had once arachnophobia and not only spiders but all arachnids including scorpions.
I even had fantasy to change my field of study to develop a retro virus to extinguish all arachnids from this earth, and if as a side effect mankind get wipe out too... Well if the spider die first I would be OK with it. ;p
No seriously, I'm over it now.
By accident I noticed my local zoo offer a course to get over with arachnophobia. Since that I not longer fear spiders but instead hate them.
My friends always laugh at me because when I see a spider I just don't have to kill it, I must squish it thoroughly into a bloody pulp.

My daughter is arachnophobic. Often to the great delight of her older brothers...So, I understand it in real life if you have a reaction to a spider. I don't particularly like snakes myself having been around rattlesnakes a lot in my youth.

However my point was/is: If you knew there were spiders in the movie "Spiderman" would you still go see it? From your post you seem like a reasonable person so I would guess that for you it would depend on your tolerance level and if you felt like you could handle the scenes with spiders.

What most folks would *not* do though is go to the theater or producers and ask for a special showing that was arachnophobic-friendly. Do you see what I am saying? I don't think these kinds of requests really apply well to entertainment. Why? Well, other very common phobias are fear of snakes and mice. Many people have a phobia surrounding ghosts or bats as well. So where would you draw the line in a game? When does this type of thing start to impact creative freedom and design?

P.S. I know it seems like I am targeting the OP here and I most certainly am not. I know lots of people have this issue (including my own daughter). However, I do think it's an interesting topic to discuss.

Since I just preordered it, I downloaded the bonus goodies and while I was looking at the Sketches I noticed something. There is one sketch of a settings menu and one of the sliders is named Spiders. So it might be worth it for you to ask about this on the developers forum, they are known to personally answer quite a few questions. :)

If there is one great thing about humans than that we forum communities to help each other.
Like the GOG community where we help each other out when faced with gameplay or technical issues.
Considering there are a substantial number of people haunted by arachnophobia in my opinion, it's wroth the effort to create a mod/texture replacement. Don't leave people behind. That's not who we are nor who we should be.

The Skyrim community created a No Spiders mod, considering LOG will be mod friendly I'm sure a kindly heart with artistic skill will create a mod for LOG too.

edit: Link to Skyrim No-Spiders mod
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=28

Exactly. Mods are what should be used for anything of this sort. The Skyrim spider mod is actually kind of funny. They replaced the spiders with bears in one of them. Amusing to see a bear come down from the ceiling on a spider web...

My bet is on the modders, too. Someone will probably create a "giant rat" mod or some such, but the OP is right to guess that it won't be that way at release. Maybe just keep an eye on forum traffic for a heads-up when a change does become available?

Interestingly, I'm not phobic at all, but it's actually rats more than spiders that give me that aggressive "ew, kill it, kill it, kill it" reaction in games. Pet rats are awesome, but sewer rats scuttling away underfoot when I'm walking to the laundry room at night grate on my nerves, so I'm generally not pleased to run across them in games. Good sword practice, though.

spiders in the night, exchanging glances
crawling in the night
what were the chances we'd be sharing love
before the night was through

something in your web was so inviting
something in your eyes was so exciting
something in my heart told me I must have you

As someone who loves spiders, for all that they are generally ugly and scary as all f%*@, I personally hate killing the real thing. Maybe I'll have to find out how to mod and make a special anti-spider weapon that is a giant cup and piece of card so I can capture them and place them safely outside...

This. I love spiders - they eat Mosquitos!

That's more or less my argument to my wife, who would be happy if I flattened them (spiders that is). They kill flies. I hate flies. Want to gross me out in a game, have giant flies. And then give me a special weapon of a giant electric fly swat. Bzzt! Hehe.

Here's what I personally don't understand about people who use mods to remove the things they're afraid of in games:

You're meant to be afraid of the nasty giant spiders!

It's not like everyone else who plays this game is going to be petting them like dogs and cooing at the screen as they menacingly click their venom-drenched pincers in your face. The developers and artists intentionally made these spiders disgusting and scary in order to heighten your tension and add to the dungeon-dwelling experience.

Would you use a mod to take the aggressive AI out of Condemned? or remove the Antilions from Half Life 2? Or install a mod for a flight simulator that keeps all planes grounded because of your fear of heights?

Not to be insensitive -- I personally hate spiders too. But that's the point. They're scary, they're giant, they're evil, and I'll be damned if they're not going to be dead by the time I'm finished with them.