TL;DR: Game fun if you like the first Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Cold Iron sticks to their guns and says - nothing wrong with the first one, lets give you a second helping of corn bread and you'll like it marine. Most of us say sure, some still have gripes left-over from the first on how this game could polish and become something truly great.
My review is out of love, because I only want good things for Cold Iron with this franchise, but I gotta be honest. I like the gameplay and the location, graphics, kits and gunplay. the rest we need to talk about.
Previous gripes that carry-over:
We're ignoring my gripes about a third-person over the shoulder shooter in an age of Aliens games all being first person, because holy hell, having someone standing behind your character is annoying when you're trying to shoot things and you can't see when you naturally cluster together in an attempt to survive the onslaught in the open without equipment... because you still only have the two napalm mines, but loads of rec credits. I also still say that the music doesn't quite hit the mark for Aliens - should be heavily influenced by military snare riffs, strings, and they reuse a lot of tracks from the first game, There are far too many tracks that have this almost funny or playful vibe to them, those tracks do not match the setting or instruments. Hard to put into words outside of pulling me out of the aesthetic - wonder, intrigue, suspense, high stakes action... some of these songs do not make the vibe check. Music should get another pass, strongly recommend.
The good:
Classic pulse rifle! Wooo! The sound design of fighting at distance, close quarters and in the open, VERY immersive. Who doesn't like kit changes, specialist class choices - chef's kiss. Customizability of characters is back again. Continues the lore, new entries!
The bad:
....And then I shot the pulse rifle - are these the actual sounds of the gun? It's confusing. What is this with getting tech like mines and grenades half-way through the story? And the gun mods, too? I know you're relying on replayability, but c'mon. Starting with 1 weapon in your signature slot to where you're pretty much playing with the smart gun for the entire story and you don't really get another weapon until half-way through is a little disappointing. Wish the story added to the progression of the timeline, where the first game provided new life into the whole of the lore and progression, this feels like it stagnates it by returning to form - Yet another colony, yet another alien invasion wiped them out, yet another W-Y alien experiment on the same xenos, yes it got out of control, but we never learn from our mistakes - Weyland-Yutani, probably...
The ugly:
Holy hell the facial animation is uncanny valley levels of bad on some of the character models, the irony that the only human-looking facial movement is on the synthetic, it's a decent bit jarring, just hoping it wasn't shopped out. Great to very mid/forced voice acting - Strongly suggest a second pass giving the voice actors a chance to play the game and see how their characters talk in the game - especially Raptor, he's just on the other side of cringe, I think partly due to the dialogue he had to work with, like he knew he wasn't quite in it or didn't know the motivation for his character when he ran his lines or who he was talking to. His character is very much not a captain, he would have suited being everyone's favorite grunt. Handing out accolades and callsigns like you wined and dined him at the worlds best steakhouse and blow job hut with a two-for-one deal. His adoration doesn't come off as genuine because you finished a tutorial as your hallmark moment... To the player, it's nothing special, and it shouldn't be. "Great job, grunt, glad you're not dead." Ko's grim gallows no-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ character fits better to her rank, her place in the game and treats the grunts as what they are - barely trained apes with guns, having played with other gamers myself, it's a realistic take for most of the people I've had the pleasure of playing with.
The same:
Gameplay is as enjoyable as the first game, but makes no changes or improvements besides the class system, cosmetics and weapons - relying on those to give replayability. Instead of completely new locations, the first few missions use the same map in reverse with some changes or additions. It's still move to X area, fight xenos on the way, hold area for swarm, fight swarm, move to next area. Some of the enemies are reimagined - I don't want to spoil anything as far whether there are new enemies or not, so I'm leaving that out. The intel now lights up, and is the same type of object.
