Yeah the beginning is a bit rough because apparently the alien is specifically programmed to not leave you alone in the first level or two that it appears. My initial experience was similar but after the first level it got a lot better.
To me the game either works great and you get a legit scary experience or the alien pops out at the wrong time and you have to briskly walk through the rest of the level or die instantly.
A lot of the free games also have DLC for sale. If you play the free game and enjoy it, odds are that it is cheaper to get the DLC on epic instead of buying the game and dlc on steam. No idea how often that works out for epic, but it’s one way they could make money back from free games.