I've played through twice now on PC and PS4 both on normal difficulty. I'd go for thirds, but I have things to do and I'm too emotionally exhausted from such a stressful effort...in the best way! :)
Right from the start, it's clear the devs revere their source material. This game is a Promethean love letter to all those who hold Alien in high regard. Fan-service is bountiful throughout, while blazing new territory for the game's protagonist, Amanda Ripley, only child of Ellen Ripley. The opening hour of Isolation is a great work of restraint, building tension and dread in healthy amounts. Dense, dimly-lit metal hallways have never been rendered so well. The audio complementing the setting perfectly. Once the superb xenomorph appears, the dread virtually boils over as the sounds of it moving and stalking about play on your nerves, sweat dampening your palms as you fearfully make your way through a failing space station. The impressively unpredictable A.I. can be equal parts devious and dumb, though you can bet I was grateful for the dumb on more than a few occasions. Devious in that it can quickly double back to check an area after stalking it to catch you in the open thinking it was gone, or lying in wait in a ceiling vent ready to pounce. Dumb in that you can play cat and mouse with it while crouching around a box, or that after chasing you into a room just a second too late to see you hide inside a locker, it doesn't just start trashing the place to find you.
The alien is a constant threat for the bulk of the game's 20 hr length, but if you choose to do combat with it, you're either stalling or dying, as you can't put up much of a fight. You are prey. There are human enemies as well as android, but the latter only become a threat late in the game. The humans are the weakest link in the cast, with the setting and xenomorph getting much more development. Thankfully, they aren't really the focus, and are easily dealt with. The androids serve a welcome role as a reprieve from the unstoppable alien, yet are formidable in their own right and provide a new wrinkle in dealing with when combined with the presence of the alien. It's better to avoid them, but if pressed, with a little forethought, you can dispatch them without too much trouble. I really loved how creepy they were. A worthy secondary enemy.
Combat can be a clunky affair, but fittingly so, as Amanda is not meant to be a soldier. Still, a quick select for weapons would have been welcomed. Many times I ran into the alien, too far from an escape, and was killed in the radial menu while desperately trying to select an IED, or was running from an android and had to completely stop to switch to the appropriate weapon(as you cannot change weapons without stopping) and was ragdolled into the nearest bulkhead. Of course the situation with the alien catching me in the open could be remedied with careful preparation, and failure to do so be attributed to user error, in cases of dealing with an android AND and the alien, even while knowing the two best weapons to have on hand, being able to switch between them effectively on the fly, are two entirely different things. It's the kind of desperation born from poor combat mechanics rather than the desperation born from an exhilaratingly deadly situation.
The main flaw to this game is its overly long running time. The number of false endings is nearly laughable if it weren't so frustratingly tense. The game is taking a cue from the movies and extending it to the Nth degree. It's as if you took the escape shuttle sequence in Alien and played it out in various forms...a dozen times. Numbing. The developers needed a good editor to tell them to pare back. Sometimes, less is more.
The amount of small bugs and glitches in the game are worth mentioning as well as they can serve to break your immersion in this wonderfully dreadful space coffin. Several times, humans spoke without moving their lips, and guns and cans floated about in mid-air ignoring the station's artificial gravity.
This game is beautiful. It perfectly captures the look of the first Alien movie. The dense mechanical hallways, the volumetric light and steam, the retro 70's future aesthetic are so artfully done it just makes me smile. The sound design is also first rate. As far as the audiovisual presentation goes, for those who love the aesthetic of the first movie, creepy space dungeon games, or stealth games in general, look no further than Alien: Isolation. The tense, suspense-filled hours of dread you spend creeping through the hallways are, in my book, a strength. A huge plus. If the last 50% of the game were cut in half and the ending more satisfying, this game would get a 9 from me. As it is, I wouldn't give it less than a 7 and no more than an 8. Still, one of my favorite games this year, and easily my favorite Alien/s game ever if based only on nailing the look and feel of the movies so expertly.
7.5 - Frequently flirts with brilliance, some rough edges mar an otherwise great game. Needs editing. Not for everyone.
8.5 - Bonus point for hardcore fans of the movies. :)