GameSpot's Erik Wolpaw scored the PC version a 7.7 out of 10, and although he was very critical of the trust/fear system and the controls, he concluded ""The Thing" is kind of short, it's not especially effective at making you feel afraid, its most intriguing gameplay elements are somewhat extraneous, and it suffers from a wonky control scheme. Yet, thanks to some high production values and consistently interesting action scenes, "The Thing" rises above these flaws. It could have been great, but in light of the checkered history of movie-licensed games, being good at all is a pretty impressive achievement." Ryan MacDonald scored the PlayStation 2 version an 8.4 out of 10, writing "When you look at everything the game offers in terms of its gameplay, presentation, and story, it's hard not to appreciate "The Thing" whether you're a fan of the film it's based on or just a fan of the survival horror genre in general." He also scored the Xbox version an 8.4 out of 10, calling it "The best of the three, combining sharp graphics similar to those found in the PC version with the superior console-style control found in the PlayStation 2 version." "GameSpot" later named "The Thing" the second-best Xbox game of September 2002.