Holy sh... I was wondering how they could top the freakishly disturbing atmosphere of the first game but oh ... OH! ... DAMMMMMMN!
It's times like this that I'm so, so glad I picked up the original when I did. I can't believe how expensive it's gotten. Trust me though, you will be very hard pressed to find this game for less than $40. I'll tell ya; even after 11 years, the artwork in the original still looks amazing. Also, I think McGee said something along the lines that EA actually lost the source code for the game.
Yeah, the "gun" she's using literally is a pepper grinder (from 'Word of God'). In the original, the Duchess (the first boss) attacks you with one, although you never get to use it. This looks like what I hoping it'd be, but my main concern is that the gameplay will be too God of War-ish. The original was a true TPS, where the camera was always behind Alice by default, although you could manually rotate it. This made it easy to control, much like an FPS. The trailer sort of appears that the camera angles may be all over the place which I think would make the combat feel less natural. I hope this isn't the case.
Playing the first game will make the context of the story for this one make waaaaaay more sense. So if you can I'd do it. Hell I think I will anyway.