Great atmospheric TPS with a good variety of aliens.
It takes place on a planet where the human colony has been overrun by aliens and humanity is at war with a race of aliens known as the 'Locusts'.
Even though Gears of Was wasn't the first game to use this style of 'take cover and shoot' style gameplay,I think Gears of War went a long way to perfecting it.In Gears of War,you can order/direct your character to get behind an object to use as cover from enemy gunfire and you can do it at the press of a button/or direction on the D pad.
You can also shoot back at your enemies when you're behind cover but when you do so you'll leave yourself a little bit exposed for them to shoot you,but you'll receive less damage to your health this way and your health constantly regenerates.If you are shot when you are not behind cover or if an enemy gets gets close to you,there's a good chance you will die because gunshots/enemy attacks do a lot of damage.Sometimes you'll need to be tactical and manuever your character and team(yes,you'll sometimes have a team with you),in a way that can outflank the enemies).Sometimes,the enemies will fortify an area by using a powerful machine gun turret as well as taking up other positions in the stronghold and even on casual difficulty if you are shot by the machine gun turret you'll most likely die.When you direct your teammates,you can give orders to them to attack or be defensive and the AI will control them.If your teammates get shot many times and lay on the floor,you can revive them as many times as you want.
The AI of your teammates does a good job not to over power your character,but it isn't bad enough to be useless.Some of the enemies will stay behind cover and will keep shooting at you(to force you to be very accurate when you shoot back at them if you want to kill them or to make you use some strategy,such as outflanking them).Some enemies will rush at you and try to get behind your cover so you'll be vulnerable and so they can try to shoot you from up close.There fast moving,savage creatures that can climb walls/ceilings and they will leap at you and try to tear you apart with their claws.There's aliens that have skin which makes them invulnerable to gunshots and you'll need to use a satelite weapon to kill them and there's mammoth creatures too and besides those aliens that swoop down and try to eat you alive,there's also other aliens that can fly and chase you.
Your character runs a little bit slow and awkwardly,which makes getting behind cover a MUST for dodging bullets,but leaves you vulnerable to fast moving creatures that cover is useless against.You can counter these creatures but using your chainsaw and if you time the press of the button correctly,you'll be able to cut up these creatures with your chainsaw when they leap at you.
The atmosphere of the game is great,the city looks very war torn,during battles you'll hear bullets landing everywhere and loud gun shots all around you.When you cut up an enemy with a chainsaw,their blood will splatter the screen.There's also aliens that fly above you and if you walk into dark areas they will swoop down and eat you alive(yes they're a copy of the aliens from Vin Diesel's movie named Pitch Black)but they're still cool nonetheless.This also means when you're travelling through places at night time,you'll need to stay where there's light(also while trying to use cover to avoid the gunshots from the Locusts).There's also some underground cave style environments and on board a moving train with a nice sunset in the background.
The atmosphere does a good job to make the world feel almost apocalytic,as you will come across strongholds with human survivors too and there's not many human survivors on the planet.
The graphics also have very nice textures during the gameplay and cutscenes and look very smooth.
I experienced 3 glitches on my first playthrough of this game that forced me to reload the game.
But overall it's a great and atmospheric TPS experience.