I was thinking of picking up a used copy this week. I enjoyed Dead Space a lot on my first play through, but found it had little replay value as the Necromorphs always spawned in exactly the same numbers and exactly the same places and did not respawn. Being able to wander the empty ship was not all that valuable an adjunct to game play as it was, well, empty.
Did they correct this deficiency in 2?
Dead Space 2 had the same system as DS1. Enemies don’t spawn endlessly, and they spawn in the same places each time through (for a given difficulty level). I never played the top 2 difficulty levels, so I don’t know if they were any different. So yes, once you clear a deck, you can walk back through & fully explore it without any necros jumping you.