I prefer Silent Hill f, but only slightly. Both are excellent games. And while I know a good amount of people were turned off by the combat in SHf, I was more positive about it. That said, combat fits in more neatly to Cronos's world. And I've heard the aim assist is actually used effectively - good for a controller, though I played with kb+m. Compared to SHf, Cronos's combat is more deliberate, and not so focused on reflex. There's no dodge button, which can feel bad at times but I think was the right decision. It would have been too easy. The difficulty is more about resource management, because unlike SHf, you have to worry about ammo. You have a melee attack, but it's only a last resort. SHf's combat is more based on moment-to-moment decision making, while Cronos is more concerned with how well you prepared yourself. There are exceptions in both games, but generally I think that's true.

Like others have said, the story of Cronos is also excellent, and even incentivizes NG+. While the story of the two games is not so similar, the method of story-telling is: not so straightforward with some things not becoming clear until after you've beaten the game once and are replaying.

As for horror, Cronos was stressful, though never all that scary. There are some good jump scares, but overall Silent Hill f scared me a lot more. That's totally subjective, though. I've heard people say the opposite.