Aliens CM is both a blessing and a bit of a curse. However, I found it..........enjoyable enough.
The presentation is probably the biggest problem to me. They did a nice job replicating the look of the environments and added music that feels like it was taken from the movies. There are also plenty of easter eggs. The aliens look great as well. Now lets go over the problems.
The biggest problem with the presentation was the fact that the game wasn't polished well. You can get stuck in some areas, the visuals can be a bit jarring at times, lip synching is off, and the checkpoints doesn't always work the way they supposed to. I guess a patch would do the game a lot of good.
The story is supposed to answer questions about what happened after the last movie. To me it was more like a hit and miss. Gearbox had a chance to do some pretty neat stuff with the story since they had a bit more leeway in terms of creativity. The story just seemed more like the typical good guys versus the bad guys story. The emotions of the soldiers also should have been much stronger. Being all macho in a screwed up world like the aliens universe should have made them feel like they would rather take their own lives then venture farther in it. The campaign is pretty short as well.
The gameplay is more like the typical first person shooter. First, I would like to say that I am happy that coop was included for the single player campaign due to the fact that I am a coop type of guy. You can still play alone if you want a little more suspense. But let me warn you the AI is stupid; so don't rely on them for good backup. One character has a smart gun; but he still has trouble taking aliens out.
You can shoot, jump, use the motion tracker(I love that thing),and upgrade weapons. The weapon upgrades are awesome; but the fact that you have so much firepower at your disposal kind of takes away the suspense of it all. Not only can you upgrade your pulse rifle with two or three attachments; but every weapon you unlock can be used during gameplay.
And to make matters worse there is plenty of ammo available. Ammo and armor pickups are even shared with the entire party. Oh come on! The fact that you have an entire arsenal available anytime means that the resources should be limited and everyone shouldn't get what you pickup. That way a team has to work together to make good use of what is available.
The good thing about the game is there are more alien types and they are pretty fast. The aliens can crawl on and under objects and appear from anywhere. However, it seems that there are some areas; where aliens don't take advantage of their ability to flank. The aliens do flank; but it doesn't seem as though they do it all the time; especially in those tight corridors. Maybe increasing the difficultly fixes that problem. I hope it does cause right now I have been playing on normal. The addition of humans kind of messed of the flow; because fighting humans is not as fun as fighting the aliens. If fighting humans were rare and extremely brief; then I wouldn't have had a problem with it.
There is one chapter that was really interesting. It is a stealth mission that was creative and quite scary due to having no weapons and the actions of the new alien was pretty random. The aliens reacted to any kind of sound and they would play possum and hide amongst the other aliens. It was hard to tell; which alien was dead, sleep, or alive. If most of the chapters were as cool as the chapter I described I think this game would have been a whole lot better.
The multiplayer portion of the game was well received. It had that Left 4 Dead feel; but aliens style. In escape mode there is a team of marines and aliens. The marines have to escape the area in order to win. The alien team cannot let any marine escape. The fact that human players are taking control of the aliens is what makes it so interesting. Players may have a hard time controlling the aliens though. And that lack of control will make it a bit harder to effectively take out the marines.
The other modes are more like the typical team death match modes. The only problem I see with mulitplayer is the fact that the aliens are the ones who are at an extreme disadvantage since the marines has so much fire power at their disposal and the aliens can die pretty quickly. Therefore, alien teams have to really work together to coordinate attacks in order to stand a chance. The lack of maps also kinda hurts the experience a bit. They should have had at least 5 to 6 maps available before planning all of this DLC stuff again. It kinda gives you feeling the game was being rushed or not focused on enough due to the lack of polish and maps.
Pros:
+Environmental design is really familiar to the aliens universe.
+The music is great.
+Plenty of references to the movie.
+There are more alien types than AVP.
+The pulse rifle sounds perfect and the other weapons are good.
+The multiplayer mode is good fun.
+4 players can play the single player campaign.
Cons:
-The story could have been better.
-Stupid A.I partners.
-The number of weapons you carry isn't limited to two.
-Too much ammo resources.
-Ammo and armor sharing among coop buddies makes it too
easy.
-The game isn't polished.
-The aliens don't always take advantage of their skills in the
campaign.
-Short campaign.
To me the game is fun; but it felt like the game could have been a whole lot better. Gearbox and Sega had about five years to make this game. The game is better than Aliens vs. Predator; but the fact that the game is so easy and not so polished really hurts a potentially awesome gaming experience. The game feels dated. I think if this game came out during or after the year of Aliens Vs. Predator it would have probably gotten a way better score.
This game gets a 6 out of 10.