Fun, but over before you know it.
Area 51 is like a summer action flick, it's action packed for about 2 hours, but when it's over you're left with something you'll probably be talking about for the rest of the summer. Alright, it may be a bit longer than two hours, but not by much. But while your playing, it comes at you fast and furious with some great gunfights, tight controls, and a government conspiracy story that no Area 51 game should be without. Not to say that the story doesn't fall short in places, and the ending left too many questions unanswered to not have an established sequel in the works. This is evened out by the solid action taking place on the screen. It kind of has a GRAW meets Starship Troopers feel to it, and it works. I just whish it wasn't over so darn fast, the story took some steep turns to keep up with the rapidly approaching ending. It would have benefited so much from a more paced story, and more interaction with the NPC characters fighting by your side. The graphics are crisp and the frame rate doesn't suffer at all from a screen full of gunfire and explosions, which is a good thing. There are some well-crafted enemy models, there just could have been more variety in them, at least in the larger ones that show up a hand full of times to cause massive destruction. Ally NPC characters track you with their eyes and head when they talk to you, and the voice acting fits good with the dialogue and the characters speaking it.
Not a lot of variety in weaponry, but given the time spent playing the game, that was most likely the wisest choice. You do get the basics, a pistol, assault rifle, and grenades. There is also a pair of alien weapons that to me were more problematic than an honest to goodness boom stick. Perhaps I'm bias, but I can't help but go with my conventional projectile weapons over that overly sci-fi stuff. The barrel of your assault rifle gets hot and turns red as you fire it, and the explosions and other weapon sounds get the job done. They offer you some context sensitive squad commands, but with the way the game is designed, this limited system is rendered pretty much useless you need a door opened that you otherwise could have opened yourself.
All in all, it is a fun game to play on the week end to get a good action fix, just don't plan on spending a whole lot of time with it. Rent it, or if you can find it reasonably cheap, go ahead and buy it, but is a game any action buff would want to at least play. I give it a 7.5