Fan Reviews

[Nightlord]

But the number one complaint doesn't have anything to do with Dark Decent, but HOW MIND BOGGLING IT IS that somebody can't take Dark Descent's idea and make a playable Colonial Marines FPS.  How is it so difficult that the only people who have done it have been in crossover vs games? 

If I'm remembering those lies told about Colonial Marines when it was first announced by Gearbox/Sega in '07 it was meant to be exactly this down to managing squamates and having onslaught moments as you moved through levels and welded parts down, they had the idea they just abandoned it.

[Darkness]

Think I'm up to about Mission 8 now. There are moments of greatness when xenomorphs are swarming your location and you have to defend a location. It's really what Colonial Marines is about. There's a lot of similarities with Isolation as it keeps me on edge, just hoping I can make it to the objective without dying. It's too easy to lose a marine though. Spent ages in the previous mission just getting from one end of the map to the other and the shelters weren't saving the game when I made them. Never seem to have enough supplies to actually upgrade the marines or buy new weapons.

How do you upgrade the Sentry Guns? It keeps saying I need somebody with the ability but looking through the upgrades for the marines, I can't find it.

Is there any way to decrease the infestation level?

[jacobo1122]

Ok, I finished it few moments ago. It was damn good Aliens game! I had recently a streak of playing games that I can fairly rate 7 or 7,5/10, because they have problems, smaller budgets and haven't all their aspects polished, but I can see love that their Creators put into them, and they shine brightly with features that most care was put into. Ultimately they gave me more fun than many AAA games. And  Dark Descent is one of those. When it shines, it's tone of fun. As Isolation perfectly catptured horror of first movie, DD does the same with suspense of Aliens. Thanks to mechanics like perma death, Threat level and resources and stress managment, it always keeps You on Edge. Visually, Levels look great, like taken straight from the movies, with tone of details that were super entertaining to catch. DD's story is very good mix of various EU elements, with some parts and motives taken straight from novels or comics, like Destroying Angels, Out of The Shadows, Sea of Sorrows and more. Wheter this similarities were intended or not, they were fun to see im motion. When it comes to problems, lower budget is visible in graphics, mainly in animations and cutscenes. Game can be repetitive in later levels, and I'm not sure about death count feature. When it showed up, I thought it is good tool to put me into even more stress, but later it turned up to be true, but not in a good way. With no indication of how much missions were left, my playtrough became too careful, with reloading saves with slightest mistakes and frustration, when situation was getting Rough. And in the end it turned up that I really needn't to be so paranoic because I had plenty of days left. If I ran out of them though, I probably had to start a new Game, and I wouldn't have patience or time for that. Game also had a lot of glitches, some of them very irritating and affecting gameplay. Despite those problems Game was so much fun for an Alien fan who likes challenge.

[bobby brown]

Is there any way to decrease the infestation level?

yeah, there is a xenotech application that you can use as many times as you can afford it. for 10 Xeno dollars, it lowers it one bar at a time. Dont remember exactly when you unlock it. but you are close.

[Corporal Hicks]

Just finished this yesterday. I've put 45 hours into this over 2 weeks, granted about 30 of that was in the first week I had booked off. I really didn't really get to sink into it this week but I got there last night after leaving geek club early to come home to play it. I played on the PC - no bugs of note to really mention. Just silly things like the drone getting stuck off map, or t-pose Aliens that have since been fixed by patching.

I really f**king enjoyed this game. I'll keep it short as I still want to write a proper review, but I find it satisfying in its difficulty the same way I did Isolation. It was frustrating at time, but overcoming those difficult moments really felt earned. Loved the heavy narrative focus - loved the implications of the end. I really got attached to the characters so moments like the intro cinematics of the final mission just hit a satisfied bell for me.

Gameplay was great. Just embodies the feel of Alien and Aliens, especially that hive attack scene.

Oh, I also need to mention how much I loved the music in this game. A perfect blend of Aliens and Alien 3 somehow. I just loved those little hints of Agnus Dei in there.

[Mike’s Monsters]

Still haven't managed to sit down and start this one, but with all the buzz everyone has, I'm very much looking forward to playing this one. Hopefully by the time I can boot it up there will be a patch for the consoles.

[S.E.B.]

Oh, I also need to mention how much I loved the music in this game. A perfect blend of Aliens and Alien 3 somehow. I just loved those little hints of Agnus Dei in there.

The Agnus Dei hints were beautiful, and on top of that they got a bunch of other Alien 3 tributes in there. The cultists look like the inmates, and i.d. say that Junior was the main influence there. They got the abattoir, and a lot of the mines and industrial areas are quite Alien 3 in their design. And not to forget the Runner aliens. I wish though that the W&Y commandos looked more like the Alien 3 ones.

[Darkness]

Finished the game yesterday. I enjoyed it. I think it's the first time a game in the series has nailed what it's like to be part of a Marine squad. Still very suspenseful like Isolation. Played on Medium difficulty which I think is still too hard. It's too easy to lose a Marine. So a lot of time I spent reloading saves because I didn't like losing anybody. 

Too many times, I just didn't seem to have enough supplies either. Those last few missions took me like 4 or 5 deployments to do as I kept running out of medikits. Then my Marines seem to develop injuries a lot easier so had to wait even longer for more to be available.

But what I think this does very well is where you have to defend a location. I missed that in Extinction. You place all your sentry guns and traps and just let the Xenomorphs charge at you. It's just so much fun to watch and I never got bored of it.

Glad they let you control the squad as a group instead of individually. Very easy to play on consoles. I didn't really like the idea of the Deathclock. I didn't think I was going to make it. Got within 2 days and the game gave me another 2 to get it finished. I also think they should give you more supplies to buy weapons and upgrades. Some of the attribute upgrades are really good but just weren't able to upgrade everybody. A few game bugs here and there but nowhere near as bad as what the reviews said.

Would definitely play again but maybe on easiest difficulty.

Improvements

• New Game Plus
• Better Interface on the Otago
• Disable the DeathClock
• Disable the "Let's Go Marines"
• A way to decrease the infestation level.

Score: 8.5/10

[Predatorium]

So I replayed the game on nightmare difficulty with permissive saves..what a leap from easy I lost maybe 4 marines, but I had 9 or 10 days left on the death clock to my surprise. Such a good game! What also surprised me was that apparently only 0.5% of the player base has completed it on nightmare difficulty atm

[Nostromo]

Not only game of the year for me but added this to the top of my ALien games along with AVP2, AVP Extinction, Alien Isolation and Aliens Fireteam Elite.

Pretty much puts the franchise back on track for me anyways. great story also. Definitely recommend this! Finished it on PC< but am about to start a replay.

[Kimarhi]

I beat it on Medium today.  Still buggy even after the patches, going to take a few more updates for it to be the game the devs want it to be, but I like it better than Fireteam Elite, and I personally liked it better than Isolation, even though I can't stand isolation-esque games. 

I liked that it leaned into the EU as much as it did the movies.  I don't think the EU lore is better, just that it is more varied than JUST using the first three movies as your primary influence which is what many of these games get stuck doing. 

Now if only a Dev could take everything right with the story, world building, lore wise with this game, and make a squad based FPS out of something similar. 

Also I'm calling Maeko Hayes somehow teaming up with Amanda Ripley and Zula Hendricks. 

[BlueMarsalis79]

I hope to never see Amanda or Zula again.

Now if only a Dev could take everything right with the story, world building, lore wise with this game, and make a squad based FPS out of something similar.

When was the last good one of them you have played though, even without anything considering intellectual properties, f**king GRAW 2 from like 2007?

Tactical cooperative shooters do not really even exist anymore.

[Kimarhi]

I don't think it has to be tactical, but I personally would want more immersive than lone dude kills millions of bugs FPS.  The other NPCs would be there for worldbuilding more than anything. 

There are a TON of tactical shooters out there, but I don't know if the style of ground branch, ready or not, or 6 days in fallujah etc would work and that isn't what I had in mind. 

I just want a game where your colonial marine detachment scours various places across the galaxy looking for Aliens and trying to stop their spread.  But instead of the commander perspective, you have a grunt perspective. 

[BlueMarsalis79]

Yeah... none of them are any good's more my point, I genuinely can't think of a good modern first person shooter not plagued by some invasive and exploitative business practices, and one with a cooperative angle? I seriously doubt it. I hope I'm wrong because I'm tired of being right about this, but I have seen nothing to instill confidence in that corner of the industry in near fifteen years.

[TheBATMAN]

Finally finished this and I must say, despite being a complete newcomer to this type of tactical game, I really enjoyed it. I liked the last level. I wish Prometheus had gone down this route and simply added some more intrigue to the Space Jockey puzzle rather than outright answering it.

The story was nothing spectacular, but it was well told and I really appreciated the cinematic approach with the numerous cut scenes.

I started a second run through and decided to really take my time and find everything. I explored every nook and cranny of Dead Hills and hats off to the developers for creating such an authentic Aliens experience. This really is the 'Aliens' to Isolation's 'Alien.'