Oh boy, where to begin.
First off I should mention that I went from Space Marine 2 to this game, so take that with a pinch of salt. Even if I wasn't transitioning from one finally polished game to this one I doubt my feelings would change.
Let's get the good stuff out of the way first. The game is certainly chaotic and good for some hoard style shooting. It's a decent co-op game (I would never have played this alone) and the sound effects are very alien.
Let's move onto the bad.
The game's difficulty is incredibly indecisive. At one point in a mission you'll be mowing down aliens for what feels like hours without any issues. Then, because the game doesn't give you ammo or else the ammo crate only works for one person, you're stuck with your sidearm and just trying not to get overrun. I found myself unable to decide if the game was difficult or just annoying. It's honestly impossible for me to decide for now, but it feels like Payday 1 in the sense that the game was balanced for late game which makes the early game feel top heavy. I felt exhausted after three or four missions of this game and in desperate need for a break, whereas in Space Marine 2 I felt energized and eager for the next encounter up until I was forced to log off in the evening.
Progress is also really weird. You have your overall progress, your class progress, your weapon progress, and your damage progress. All of these factors are supposed to improve some sort of damage calculator, which proves if you're ready for the next mission. The problem with this is that many of the tools and attachments you need to improve this number are locked behind missions, leaving you with either grinding for levels or else just forcing through. The fact that my friend and I were able to consistently keep pushing without worry tells me that this number probably doesn't mean much.
Next is the AI. Enemy AI is clever at first glance, the aliens seemingly splitting up so they can attack you from multiple angles and force you from cover. However, you quickly realize that this is nothing more than their spawn mechanics, which have been set up to purposefully give you that impression. Enemy and friendly AI is very weak. Most of the big xenos, which are supposed to be a major threat, will just stand out in the open not doing anything so you can kill them. The friendly AI, meanwhile, will shoot walls, each other, or just crouch in cover and not shoot while enemies attack them. At one point I couldn't shoot my gun because the AI kept walking in front of me absorbing my shots. Once you realize that you just need to find a corner, plant yourself there, and the enemy will run to you and die without getting close. Even the robots with guns are disappointing, most of them either running out in the open shooting at random or others going into cover and staying there until you walk over and shoot them or blow them up with a grenade or an ability.
Oh, abilities are okay, I suppose, so there's another positive.
Next up, graphics. I didn't want to mention this, but I feel like I have to. The graphics are very underwhelming. The game isn't hideous by any means, but it also has a strangely boring look to it that doesn't do much to make me feel like exploring it more than I have to. I suppose that they're passable, but this game certainly won't be scoring any victories for its look. Alien's Dark Descent looked way better than this and it was a top down semi-real time strategy game.
Last, and this is really something I'm tried of by now, but I have to address this. The characters are annoying. Raptor, the pilot, is constantly shooting you quips and jokes while you're in the middle of a do or die fire fight like an out of touch millennial. His voice is grating and he never seems to understand when to just shut up or be serious. Besides him every other NPC I've been introduced to is a *strong female protagonist* who is just there to tell you what to do, posture over everyone, and essentially make you feel like you aren't literally saving her and the rest of her girl's club for the first four missions. I swore I would never comment on something like this, but this being the third or fourth aliens game where this happened is just irritating. I ended up muting the dialogue not long after the music, which is also pretty bad. Seriously devs, stop setting up your music to trigger when enemies approach. It allows me to have a 10 second heads up that enemies are around when the generic music switches to yet another generic song.
I could talk about how prices are so high for components and skins that you can't afford anything, probably with the excuse of trying to get people to grind old missions, the broken auto-aim mechanic that allows me to shoot enemies through cover, or the bugs I've experienced, but this is about the most that I can muster right now.
So far the only enjoyment I've had in this game has been through playing it with my best friend and finding new and hilarious things to laugh at. I'll post an update if anything changes by the end, but until then just save the money and the annoyance and pass this one by.
