This is the kind of game that makes me wish there was some kind of "Neutral" or "Mid" rating rather than just recommend or not. Because this game isn't bad per se, it's certainly not a disaster like say, Colonial Marines (though any game would have to work really hard to be as bad as that one). But it is disappointing. Where the first Fireteam Elite was smaller and clearly had less money thrown at it, it seemed like a labour of lover, the sound design was particularly excellent and it was a very successful take on the Left4Dead formula with the Aliens, this game is indeed bigger and longer, but it falls short on several sides. Here is a list of pros and cons:
Pros:
- More weapons and some of them are interesting additions rather than cc-ing everything from the first game
- Some new interesting aliens variants that really do push you
- Gameplay is fundamentally fun and it's just nice to go blasting aliens even if you are repeating the same missions
- More customization options for your marine
- Works pretty well even on older hardware, I can appreciate not rushing to max out the graphics in this economy
Cons:
- Sound design is considerably worse, particularly when it comes to weapons and I don't know how they ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up so bad from the first game
- The writing is atrocious, and I say that knowing what kind of game this is, but wow. There were a number of moments where I was could come up with better lines on the spot, and this is not me bragging, this is just because the writing seems to be ruled by this nonsense where they think we are stupid and so the dialogue has to be extremely rudimentary and basic because I dunno, maybe they think we're always having a second screen or something? It strikes me the same way as some of the TV shows have gone downhill in recent years to acomodate being on a "second screen". Like this is probably my biggest complaint; the writing in the first game was by no means stellar, but it was fun and in the spirit of what you would expect from an Aliens type movie. This is extremely bland and often flat out cringe. There is no other way to put it, when an officer tells me "You pew pewed these aliens like it was nothing", it makes me cringe.
Summary: But at full price only if you are a sad Aliens content glutton like me, otherwise wait until it's on sale for less than £10. It will make the inevitable disappointment hurt a lot less. Again, this is not a bad game, and it is a representative of a much less common type of AA game that we don't see often these days, so I don't want to tear it all the way down. But measure your expectations.
