This all feels unusually familiar. Only a stupider.

And so we find ourselves back on LV-426 again.  Hunting Xenomorphs as the Colonial Marines.  This game has had a long and checkered development but it’s finally here.  So was it worth the wait?  Well, probably not.

In itself, it’s quite a standard FPS with probably more negatives than positives.  The only positives that come to mind are the attachment of the Aliens franchise, the 4 player co-op and getting to use things like the Pulse Rifle and Loader from the Aliens films and impressive distant vistas and backdrops.

Very large negatives include but not limited to:

• Fantastically stupid Alien AI: they will just spring at you and then put up their hands like they hadn't thought that far ahead.
• Sub-par voice acting: Michael Biehn said doing this game almost put him off voice acting meaning we almost didn’t get the amazing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
• Nonsensical plot: something about rescuing marines? Main characters were generic and unforgettable. The only ones you care about are returning original characters. Fans of the series say that most of this game’s plot shatters the canon of the franchise.
• Awful visuals up close: Despite the backdrops and scenery looking very nice, the up close scenery and character models looked awful
• Odd and disruptive co-op warping system: if one co-op player got too far ahead of the others, those lagging behind would halt, fade to a black screen and fade back in near the person furthest ahead. This seemed to work when you didn't want it to (like in simple corridors) and not work when you wanted it to (like when players were trapped in rooms full of deadly gas)

I could go on and on about the bad points all day but even despite that, overall it was not as awful as I was expecting it to be.  And despite the never-ending string of awful reviews I thought it was serviceable and not as gut-wrenchingly awful as I was prepared for.  This is by no means to say it was a good game.  Hell no.  It was not.  But again, the reviews made it out to be worse than it really was in my opinion.  Of course, this opinion may have been aided by the fact that I played it in 3 player co-op with 2 good friends and we were having as much fun laughing at the awfulness of it as we were shooting things in the face.

But to be fair, with all the debacle that was revealed after it’s release about the horror story of it’s development and how many times it changed hands and was outsourced and such, it never really stood a chance.  Give it a go if you dare.  But bring some friends so you have someone to laugh through the tears with.