I was a huge fan of the first game and was looking forward to the sequel and while there are improvements that have been made, there are also things about the game that simply don't work.
It's not all bad however. The weapon customisation is good and the addition of new ammo types, elemental weapons, the augments system and the new Specialist class which allows you to mix and match abilities and modifiers from the other classes are all positive changes. That is where the positives end.
This is a horde shooter based on Aliens and yet you will spend far more time fighting Synths and Pathogen than the Xenomorphs. While the pathogen are essentially the same to fight as the xenomorphs, the synths turn the game from a horde shooter into a whack-a-mole cover shooter ala Gears of War and the game just isn't built for it. The cover system is horrific and if you activate abilities from behind cover, they will not clear the cover that you're behind, will detonate right in front of you and essentially can't be utilized effectively.
Horde mode is an abomination. The mode itself is fine, but you don't know which faction you'll be going up against as the game implements an RNG system that randomly chooses a faction every 5 waves. So, you might start fighting Xeno's, then wave 6-10 will be Synths, then Pathogen etc... Each faction is weak to different damage types, so if you don't bring a loadout that covers all the bases, which you can't do as you only have 2 main weapons, you're going to have a miserable time against at least one of the factions. If there was a faction selector so you could fight the enemy of your choice it would improve things dramatically, however, there isn't. I'm here for the Xeno's, I don't really care about the Pathogen and I hate fighting Synths.
The mission design is horrendous for this type of game. For one thing, the writing and delivery of dialogue is horrific. Not a game breaking issue as the developers have thoughtfully provided a volume slider specifically for NPC dialogue, so you can effectively silence the cringe. It's almost like they knew, eh. What IS a gamebreaking issue however is that there are far too many instances in all of the campaign missions where you are forced to watch unskippable cutscenes, or stand next to an interactable objective, be it a door or a terminal, that simply refuses to let you interact with it until you've listened to the 40 seconds of garbage dialogue the game insists on spewing at you constantly throughout missions. This means a good chunk of your time in missions is spent doing literally nothing. This wouldn't be an issue in a game where you were expecting to play through it maybe once or twice, but in a game where you're expected to re-run missions potentially hundreds of times it's catastrophic for the pacing and will make you not want to replay the missions. This is, of course, something of an issue in a game where the core loop is replaying the missions over and over.
The cherry turd on the diarrhea sundae is that the game is £60. This is far too expensive for what you get.
The game has some great additions and improvements over the first one, but overall the game is a massive disappointment. If you can pick it up on sale for around £20 or so and you absolutely must have the sequel to Fireteam Elite then sure, pick it up, but temper your expectations accordingly.
