I gave up at about 8 chapters in when I learned that I was only about halfway finished. I liked it at first but found that it got stake and repetitive pretty quick. I also didn't like how the story never really advances until apparently late in the game. I didn't hate it but I wasn't super impressed with it either.
I know how you feel. I got it when it was on sale for $25 and I just finished it but at the end I was playing through to finish it rather than actually enjoying it. It wasn't a horrible game but it felt like a 6 out of 10 game to me personally. It wasn't bad but it was barely better than mediocre for me.
The constant dying was a really big annoyance for me. I think I died around 130 times during the game and that seems to be on par with other players. A lot of times I'd just suicide since I'd take a cheap hit or accidently alert someone when stealthing and rather start over since the enemies take like a third of your hits.
The majority of times I died it turned out to be a cheap death. The game doesn't give you time to figure out what you have to do in a section and you have to keep replaying it to figure out how to get past it. This is very frustrating/annoying and it removes all tension. In tense games like Resident Evil 1 you don't end up dying a lot but always feel close to dying so there's tension that if you screw up you're dead. With Evil Within you die so often there's no tension worrying that if you screw up you'll die. Dying is so commonplace that you expect it to happen sooner or later and if you screw up it doesn't really matter.
Thanks for the tip about Best Buy. I was unaware of trade ins so I'll trade it for $20 ($5 less than what I paid for it) and probably my ps3 copy of Last of Us to get the remastered PS4 Last of Us on sale for $30.