I wholeheartedly agree with this choice, and it's refreshing to see an indie title receive even a semi-GOTY. I got it in a humble bundle, figuring I'd give it a shot, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Visuals, music, dialog, combat, it all works together towards a focused goal in a way games rarely achieve. I also kept wondering while I was playing, about why exactly we need hyper tessellation DirectX 11 graphics when I was fully immersed in what could have been a SNES engine. Developers need to focus on the basics and good stuff first, for sure.
Oh, and survival horror is definitely not dead. There's the indie titles, but I swear that ZombiU is legit. An unnerving, tension filled ride through London that raised the stakes with every level. Play it in the dark, turn up the gamepad speaker. Not dead at all.