As I finished game yesterday night, I couldnt but keep wondering what problem official reviewers all across the net have. Before I started playing I remember watching IGN`s guy video followup on his review as of "why this game is sub par in his opinion". His main argument was that later game become drag and so on thus I obviously expected to get disappointed later on, probably to see some kind of "stall", gameplay mood change, story drag etc.
But none of the above happened, game kept exactly same atmosphere, story quality and my interest until the very credits rolled. When I think about it, if I exclude first AvP games because those are not exclusive Alien games then this really is the best, most genuine Alien`s game to date. But if I look at it from the gameplay perspective as a FPS game it also have qualities beating most recent FPS games and that is because game design and other points I am going to explain:
First game`s story is fantastic and 100% on par with the movie series.
Ships, level design and graphics authenticity are absolutely stunning and create true atmosphere one would expect. So is music, voice acting and sounds.
Levels are definitely not just linear corridors and often branch to sideways and sometimes allow even different route. More importantly, they are believable.
You gain tools through the game that will open new areas and routes, which mean exploration is encouraged here similar to Batman games and the like.
Your health do not regenerate and you collect items to build your own medkits as well as other gadget tools(noisemaker, pipebomb etc...) from materials you find - further encouraging exploration.
Game strike great balance between pure action and horror. It is not a pure hide/seek but also not a mindless action shooter. I did not even tried to go against alien as that is almost pointless, but game still gave me plenty of action against humans and synthetics. I felt it achieved right balance to not lose fear factor but not to become pure "crouching" game at the same time.
You manually save game at specific location, if anyone tells you they are way too far apart he should quit gaming. Its really ok. So is just about everything else those "professionals" argument against.
Game is hard, you will die a lot even on easy but NEVER feel cheated because there is NO cheating. Alien for example behave purely random as to where he goes next, where he come from etc. One can really have a feeling he is against real threat instead of script. That by the way, is another great plus of this game.
Game is lengthy enough which mean no cheap ~4h gameplay of singleplayer as some "others", but at the same time will keep the player hooked and always bring something interesting on the table.
I finished unpatched game without single crash or any problems and it ran smoothly on my gtx460se and old quad. Also, PC version mouse movement behave well and is responsive, which often cant be said for most games. In fact, main menu and whole game feel like PC natural which is really something to see these days.
Now look at the list above again and ask yourself how many FPS games have all these traits these days. There is no major stopper here. Alien Isolation have a great story, great gameplay, great level design, great atmosphere, great production values, encourage exploration, is fully authentic to the Alien series, is lengthy enough.... and for that it will get an ~6/10 on major networks lol ;) Well each to his own of course, but users score already speak loudly and I predict this game will be like a wine - it will be even more appreciated as the time goes. I recommend playing on easy or normal difficulty at most first, here easy is at least normal+ for other games which, by the way may be for most gamers another plus.
Overall really really great game, strongly recommended. At least give it a try because you cant believe this farce gaming networks has recently became.