I was pleased.
The story begins with somesort of viral outbreak within the base of Area 51. Countless scientists are transformed into bloodthirsty mutants that never seem to diminish in number. One of your fellow teams of soldiers has gone in to take control of the situation but they have not returned and you have to go in and find them. This is were you take control of the game's protagonist, Ethan Cole. The story takes a number of interesting changes as you go, plus you are treated to some interesting surprises along the way.
The gameplay is solid but a little repititive. It has all the great things you need in a FPS. Good controls, sleek weapons, and challenging enemies. There's even a melee attack which is quite useful as you play and fairly early in the game, Cole gets infected with the virus and has the ability to change at will between a muntant and a human, making your melee attack twice as good. But there is repitition, like in any FPS, in the situations you face and objectives you have to accomplish.
The graphics in the game are very well done. All of the environments are polished (or demolished) to their very best. And the mountains of splattered blood on the walls and the general disorder of the rooms was done remarkably well to a frightening point. Very immersive.
The sound, actually, isn't all that bad. I enjoyed hearing my X-files friend, Dave Duchovny, speak as a torn soldier and Marilyn Manson was pretty sweet playing "Edgar" the gray. Though I must admit the music wasn't to thrilling, the weapons effects along with the screeching of the mutants was enough to keep me going. The guns sounded fairly good and the monsters were brutally loud. It was what I expected to find.
So, in a nutshell, Area 51 delivers. It isn't the greatest FPS out there but it certainly is far from the worst. I was happy to see that Midway finally decided to make a decent version of this game. I was pleased with my experience with it, and for twenty dollars i think you will be too.