The setting, atmosphere and expectations can do a lot to create a false illusion of intelligence. I can remember some multiplayer sessions from the AVP games, where all I was doing was waiting in ambush or doing a very basic misdirect to herd my target into killable range and often got praised for out-foxing them or whatever.
Could tell most of it was down to their own perspective... They weren't used to someone doing stuff like walking up the walls and I could see them jerking their view around all over the place in the tunnels, which meant they were on edge, looking for me. It was the set design and lighting which was doing most of the scare work. I did very little!
That'll go triple for something like this, where the entire thing is geared explicitly towards making you hyper-aware of what could be the source of a shadow, due to no weapons.