Silent Hill is amazing. Personally, the second one is my favorite (with James). I agree with you, the symbolic aspect of the monsters is a large part of the appeal, and that's one of the things I wish they had kept in the movie. In the movie it was more like "ah! Scary things!" Really, the only thing I liked about the movie was the effects; it definitely looked like Silent Hill.

I haven't played Amnesia yet (it won't install on my computer ), but I'm dying to! It looks so cool. It's really Lovecraftian.