Over 40 hours in. Restarted 3 times. Have developed one hell of a motion tracker based PTSD therapy bill, much like your marines will experience while playing this. This game is worth the money. It does not hold your hand like alot of modern games, right from mission 1- No, from the TUTORIAL it demands you git gud. It is unforgivably hard, deletes the weak and expunges the wretched.... but if you get passed that first MASSIVE learning curb? The game starts to open itself up to you in such a good way.

I'll start with sound design, good. Everything sounds exactly like it should, the motion tracker as stated above WILL give you PTSD, every level will be UN-NERVINGLY quiet with that horrible beep getting louder, and louder, and louder.... The smartguns sound smart, the pulse's pulse, the sentry guns, unfortunately don't give their continuous beep like they do in the movie, nor do they scan sweep the area.... but they shoot like they do in the movie! OH how they shoot and sound gorgeous. The only problem is the same problem I have with most games nowadays, their isn't enough immersion. There isn't reverb in rooms, nor a lovely echo, you do get wind, and rain noises but eh, neither does it muffle distant noises ((though it does lower their volume))... I miss this level of sound immersion from games, but I will always want the EAX days back.

Character speech is also ok, I didn't want to rip my ears off and seal the gaping bloody holes up with concrete like I did playing colonial marine, there is NO new modern forced "social conflict" that is being put into stuff ad nauseam nowadays, infact it's only problem which I think even the voice cast picked up on, was the outright silly, stupid nod-winks to dialogue from the movie. EVERY TIME one of the cast has to push these horribly written nods to the movie out, they just say it with no respect whatsoever and it kind of made me like them even more, knowing they are thinking the same thing lol Also, special mention to 2 of the voice actors, I can't prove this... their entries are mysteriously absent from IMBD, but the second marine male voice sounds EXACTLY like an old actor that used to be on star trek, KLINGON and BORG especially., and Pryce? Pryce looks and sounds like Kira from Deep Space Nine so I SWEAR its her! But again, the characters and VAs who voice them are mysteriously absent from IMBD, so Im saying it now they are star trek actors!

Gameplay, damn good. As stated above, hard, VERY hard even on the easiest setting you are gonna be tested here 'n there and once again it demands you git gud right from the get go. Things are nicely explained to you, as you progress and play, you will uncover new things, which the game will then give you an indepth explanation about in its codex entries. THIS, is something more games should be doing. Let the player make the mistake, then tell them what it is and what you did wrong / how to combat it, like ICE DAMS! Then they learn ((frontier I'm looking at you)). If you get passed this though, If you learn the games mechanics properly? It opens itself up to you in such a great way. "You've done damn well, here's sniper rifles when you need them" "oh you are getting good at sneaking huh? Here's the APC from the movie! congratz!" "you took down that queen? Well clearly you are mister ill take on the entire damn hive myself, here's a bunch of stuff to put detection down!" Emergent gameplay, another thing long forgotten that this lot remember and bring back in such a good way.

Your squad has a small RPG mechanic, meaning they will level up on and between missions back on the Otega, as well as being able to get new upgrades / professions from techy ((hacker / drone controller)) to gunner ((SMARTGUN USER, SMART PEOPLE USE SMART GUNS!)) to recon with the amazing sniper rifle that is absolute amazing but often mess you over because the game ALWAYS puts the recon, AT THE BACK OF THE SQUAD! complaining more on that later...You can also find xenotech during missions to give you new goodies too, from putting down xenomorph detection, to a device that rips off a face hugger from a squad member without killing him...yaaay! No more face r***!

Story.... Is ok! It's not ALIENS movie level of acting but it is ok and the story can be called RIGHT from the beginning but is still, once again, better than Colonial Marine. It does a much more respectful job to the source material and I even enjoyed the cult angle, people may complain about that type of stuff but it's been in the franchise FOR YEARS in the extended media ((hell, one of the original stories for ALIEN 3 was Earth Hive, in which a cult ends up f***ing over earth by bringing them here lol)).

It is not without its flaws as with anything, and some can be glaring. When you have 4 marines, their AI seems to be fine... but I think somewhere along the way someone in the dev team thought "lets give them an extra marine half way through" and didn't quite fix the rest of the game for that, because that 5th marine? Yeah he/she gets stuck on things ALOT. I will often double take at my minimap, seeing 1 straggler somehow behind the rest of the group just because they are that poor 5th wheel.... Xenos and cult members also get stuck on things, alot. This is a double edged sword too, sometimes they will get stuck in your way, BUT! Each map is scripted to only hold a certain amount of xenomorphs on the map at any given time, so if you get some trapped somewhere? That can actually mean smooth sailing to your next objective so bare this in mind. I've also notice marines can sometimes ignore commands when not traumatised... maybe due to traits? not sure... and a big, BIG pet peev now continued from earlier, the RECON officer. Recon stands for reconnaissance.... up front, first, ahead of the squad....why is the recon officer AT THE BACK OF THE SQUAD!?!?!? This isn't a small thing either, he is your sniper rifle, your silent killer,... and you have to shove the other marines head's out first, which get them seen first before he can even shoot! Put him at the damn front where he belongs. Also the DLC is pathetic, I mean REALLY pathetic. It gives you 3 black, digital camo patterns ((which have proven to be a failure and good for nothing but trendy people wanting to look "futuristically army like!")) and a ginger cat around the ortega, which barely ever shows up. Who's bright idea was it to cut these out before launch and put them as a DLC? Are you from EA? Are you from the same 1 celled organism that's split off and is taking Unity down as well? Cuz ya know, I suppose aliens is the place to do it, hive mentality and all that.

If you can deal with hard games that don't just push you into the deep end, but drop kick you in, laugh about it then feel a bit sorry for you and throw you some floaties? Then this is for you. I adore it as both an RTS fan and HUGE fan of the first 3 movies ((3 is good F.U. I'm not defending it here I will in the comment section though lol)) I love it. It's going to be a game I will come back to on harder settings, if only for my queen to hit me slap me call me names tie me u-.... I fear I have shared to much >_>

P.S. One more thing.... It has been over 30 years, so many games released and still no one will give me the ability TO DRIVE THE DAMN APC!! Companies take note, all us fans want to drive an APC ok? We want to drive through a door, through a wall, shooting things, hopeing to GOD we don't blow the engine before we get away ok? GIVE US A DRIVABLE APC!!!!!!!