My review:
This game will stick on your mind after you've completed it. I haven't played such a nightmarish experience in a long time. And that's a good thing. When you think the nightmare is over you are thrown into another one. It took me 22 hours to get through the campaign on hard. The difficulty is perfectly balanced. As long as you take your time and proceed carefully you should be fine most of the time.
The gameplay mostly consists of you sneaking, staying quiet, hacking, crafting items to distract enemies or impair them. The further you proceed on your different missions you will find upgrades for your tools that will allow you to access areas you earlier couldn't. You will also get your hands on upgrades for your make shift weapons. Lethal weapons will eventually become part of your inventory but it's recommended to avoid using them but the further you get in the game the more lethal situations will become and they will come in handy. You can backtrack if you want to, or explore areas that are not part of the current mission. If you do you might find secret audio logs, items and easter eggs. So the game never feels very linear but instead quite free which I haven't seen since early days of Resident Evil. Of course there's always imminent danger that waits for you to make a mistake. It's even more similar in the way that you have to save your game at save stations, but don't worry, you don't need an ink ribbon. However, the game doesn't pause when you save and it takes a while for the station to load up. Nor does the game pause when you bring up your inventory and crafting system, which is reminiscent of Dead Space.
The story is good and quite straight forward, and it does contain twists and turns that did make me jump with excitement and surprise. However I wish that the conclusion would have been more satisfying. The voice acting is solid but the lipsyncing is quite poor. Especially when it's in-game and not a cut-scene.
The game itself is very well built. At no time did I experience any performance loss, crashes or game glitches that interfered with the gameplay. During my long playthrough I only noticed one or two oddity not even worth mentioning. I played the game on ultra settings and the visuals are very impressive when it comes to lights and shadows. There so many details in the environment in this game that it's amazing. At a closer inspection though, some low-res textures can be found but overall an incredible looking game.
The sound design is perfect, it re-creates and expand upon all the sounds and music from the movie Alien that it makes you feel like you really are in that universe.
The physics are great with your body reacting to everything around you in the environment, you might for example accidentally kick something on the floor and cause a loud noise or tip over furniture etc.
The option menu is well fleshed out with many different visual settings, including FOV.
The different mechanics like crafting, hacking, using tools and weapons is very intuitive. For example when entering a passcode you use your numpad, or when re-loading a weapon you must hold R to reload a full magazine, if you just press R once it will only load one bullet for example. Computer interfaces requires you to use your keyboard to navigate, like if there are no mouses which add to the push button feel of the 70s.
I was worried that the alien's "AI" would fail and break the game, but I'm glad to have been proven wrong. Not at any time did I see the alien glitch out or do something stupid. It really is a ruthless killer that requires your respect. The same goes for the humans and the androids. The humans work together as teams and if they are hostile you better avoid them or distract them to get to where you need to go. The androids are lethal if they catch you, they can't run but they do walk steadily towards you like a terminator.
Conclusion: While it does borrow a lot from other games in the terms of gameplay mechanics, this survival horror game combines old school gameplay with an extremely impressive, dynamic enemy, incredible visual and sound design and a thrilling story in full blown Alien spirit. It's a truly unique experience. If you are a fan, don't miss out on Amanda Ripley's struggle for survival and quest to find the truth..