Clearly as of 2010 - from all of the games and movies about AVP franchise, this game is the best thing!!!
All in all clearly AVP 2 is the best game about the franchise you can get.
The whole revolutionary gameplay idea about tossing 3 different characters into one game came out in previous games, but only this game does this job so well and only this game actually has all the continuity between the 3 different characters to make sense in one giant campaign.
This game is the most realistic in terms of physics when you want to experience the feeling of being a predator or an alien in the game. The previous 1999 AVP game, published by Fox was too unbalanced to fully enjoy that feeling and the new 2010 AVP game, published by Sega, is simply broken out of the box and feels unresponsive when controlling an alien or predator - you feel like you control a car, rather than any of the monsters, that is how bad it is...
So once again 3 different campaigns are available in single player mode for each faction and 4 difficulty levels are available in general, those feel balanced enough. Each campaign has it's nice intros and cut scenes and does not feel too prolonged or too short. The most obvious is that you already know what kind of gameplay feeling you should expect with each character and that is already an awesome feeling even before starting.
The game will feel like a horror/action movie when in the marine campaign, because the marine is the slowest and most vulnerable creature as he depends on wasting his gear and ammo expensively in the game. A feeling of claustrophobia and loneliness will surround you while you make your way through alien infested dark corridors, relying on your trusty smart gun and sensor tracker. You will appreciate how well your shoulder lamp lightning looks and how crucial are the magnesium flairs in backtracking situations. This will be a survivor campaign to say the least as your main applications will be to get the job done and get the hell out as fast as you can trying to just avoid aliens if possible. At the middle of the campaign you will find the situation changed and suddenly instead of being chased by aliens you will be chased by humans! Quite a turn of events and it gets so all the time. At points you will have other human allies, but only shortly, although you could tell that there will be plenty of ammo all the time to deal with all your foes through the game. It there are any problems in the marine campaign - those are the stupid placing of some of the weapons, unimportant allies bumping from time to time, as well as the lack of scenario where you would drive the fucin APC - i really missed that..
Get in the robes of a predator and feel the opposite - experience the gameplay, where your focus is not survival, but simply getting the satisfaction out of killing and destroying everything in your path! This is perfectly executed - you get to kill lots of humans, aliens as well as destroy robots and cyborgs! It won' t be easy at times, but it is safe to say that predator's mission is the easiest and most fun. And of course having in mind that you get to use all that stuff from his arsenal already sets a sadistic grin on your face - i don't need to tell what the predator has and does, you know the movies already.. But just as in the human campaign, there will come eventually a point, where the gameplay will change to the point that you will feel most insecure and vulnerable, so that you will have to dig in the ''hard way'' and sometimes feel like a laboratory rat trying to escape and then gain revenge.. So the predator campaign makes sense only if you want to feel like a ''predator'' - there is no point playing it by just skipping every obstacle and foe. There won't be any allies, only from time to time you will see other predators, but it does not change the gameplay overall. Also speedrun attempt on a predator campaign would look totally lame and would not make any logical sense.. My biggest problem with the predator campaign is that the developers made the predator to see things without his mask just like human - it totally sux. Everybody know, that without the mask, the predator is only capable of seeing the contrast colors between warm and cold, nothing more - it was an irritating human vision experience to say the least, and the main negative criteria that this game will get his rightful score in the end of the review.
Alien campaign is like a mixture of having fun and surviving at the same time - and it means it is perhaps the hardest campaign in the game. Obviously all your trashing and killing you will have to do the melee way, so this campaign, unlike any previous, is all about stealth, hiding and waiting for opportunities. Alien will walk the walks, pounce great distances from one point to other, use his ultra-vision at dark places and will get the kills with his sharp claws and stingy tale. Non of the movies have shown how and what do the aliens eat, although it was clearly shown that aliens use brain piercing and one can expect that they like brain as food.. Hm.. Hard to say.. The most extreme and frustrating moments will come when the alien has to face cyborgs and machines.. Alien uses his head bite to eat up human brain and replenish his health that way in the game, so it works on humans, animals and predators, but when faced off against machines and cyborgs, all the alien can do is to wait for an opportunity to simply bypass those things or disconnect them quit. There will be plenty of alternatives in the game for alien to choose - whether he wants to find an alternative solution and escape or directly engage in close combat. Alas, it will take 2 first missions in order for alien to evolve into an adult, combat ready xenomorph, so the alien campaign offers you to experience the legendary life cycle of the alien, just like in the movies. Unfortunately you can be an alien queen only in multi player mode. Alien campaign is the most versatile, since it can be played either really fast or really slow. There is lots to discover for the alien in his campaign. There will be times when you, as alien, will be joined by your other siblings - and those rare moments are best developed from all of the 3 campaigns, because unlike in human or predator campaign, alien actually has to take advantage of the fact that other aliens toss up in his way. There will be some levels where there won't be much to do, except get the tail out of there, while other levels offer a great and visually stunning exploration. My biggest flaw with alien is that it could have used a more sharp, edgy vision, seen like in the third move - that would really make you feel more in alien's skin.. I would also love to see how aliens coconize people...
All 3 different campaigns happen at the same time gameplay wise and let's say if you are an alien somewhere in the middle of your campaign, than you actually can see traces of your other character activities as well as hear conversations between the people in the game, who talk about what happened and what's going on.. To all the greatness you can interrupt those conversations and lay your mark of death.. So uber fun...
This game looks great and especially the lightning/shadows part. On lowest settings in runs good on a 16 Mb video card, while on ultra settings it looks ''ultra'' special. I have mixed reactions for the soundtracks however - they fit very well for each campaign and settings and change the pace really dynamically, but eventually get either too predictable or annoying; of course you can just turn them off, no problem here...
Updated my game to the latest 1.0.9.6 version i can not remember any bugs that i should write here... The customization of menu is great and lots of options are at your disposal.
Multiplayer is an equal piece of AVP 2, that makes this game so great...
While many games focus on being either simply fun or just competitive in multiplayer, AVP 2 has both values. Of course this is a game for more than 2 people to play in the server, although i find it fun to play even 1 VS 1 if the map is good. There are so many nice multilayer modes, that you will eventually pick up your favorite mode. The forces of humans, aliens and predators are fairly balanced, although it depends more on a greatly balanced map than the characters themselves. And in multiplayer you can choose additional characters to play besides ordinary ones. What i mean, for example in predator gameplay, is that you get to choose from a standard predator, light predator, heavy predator and assault predator - each with their own starting gear and physical specs. Similar pattern goes to other characters - alines and humans. And finally there is a fourth faction - corporates, which are basically revamped humans.. At times the connection can feel sloppy even with a good ping, but on the other hand, high ping in this game does not deteriorate the gamepaly, like it would do in Quake 3 Arena..
As of 2010, the master server is closed for some good time, and what is left from the community know use the AVP 2 savior mod - go and check it out if you want to play MP.
Finally AVP 2 is the best thing you can get in this mixed franchise.