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Aliens: Dark Decent is the next Alien game after the masterpiece called Alien Isolation and a fun CO-OP shooter called Aliens: Fireteam Elite. But sadly it is way worse than both of them.
So yea I'm really disappointed. I think I have to warn everyone first because this game has a “feature” that made me drop the game after spending 19h playing this game. So what's this great feature? It's a death clock, which wasn't really communicated or explained at the beginning of the game. This means I played 19 hours (which I didn't enjoy, I explaine later why) just to get a "game over, please return to main menu" screen. No cutscene or anything like that which I find really lazy and cheap. So I was forced to pretty much restart a whole new game or reload an older save file and rush through the game with no guarantee that it will be enough. I a player who loves to explore every corner of a game and I like doing side missions which I realized now is not possible because the game punishes you for this in the end. The next problem is that the whole game design doesn't really work with that kind of mechanic because it often feels like you don't have much control over what is happening. The controls are really bad, inputs are not registered or way too late which lead to your death. The KI is also not great and another big problem is that you control the whole squad and you can't really control the individual Marines. I also often had to reload segments because the Marines didn't hit the target and after doing the same segment two or three times without changing my tactics they somewho hit the target. So a huge art is just trial and error which was not fun. The Marines also died like flies when you they are in close combat which makes sense but because of that it hard to fight back once 2-3 Aliens came closer. Due to the camera positioning and controls it was often even harder and too confusing because too much was happening on screen and playing this with controller doesn't help either.

It was also annyoing to hear same three voice lines over and over again and often the messages on screen said your are safe when your are not just to throw me three more Xenomorphs into my unprepared face which then killed me so I had to replay 30 min. again. I also didn't get why there was no "continue from last save" when you are killed. You always have to go back to the main menu to reload the last save file which killed the atmosphere a little bit for me. It's sad because the atmosphere is one of the strength and I also like the motion tracker, it builds up a lot of tension just like I remember from Alien Isolation.

But the face animatios are not up to date and none of the characters are really interesting. Because of that Aliens Dark Decent is overall not a great game and many game design decisions are really frustrating. Until the "game over" screen at the end I would have probably rated this 3/5 but the "death clock" feature was the final nail in the coffin for me. I think this feature would have worked as a feature for a harder difficulty or a new game plus run but not for a first run. I understand what they were trying to do and sometimes the game some satisfying moments similar to the soulslike genre. But the game mechanics doesn't work well with the death clock, controls are not very inaccurate which make this a frustrating experience. As a huge fan of the movie Alien and the game Alien Isolation it was really disappointing to witness another bad entry.

So please just give me Alien Isolation 2 and stop creating stupid shooters out of this IP, thank you.

Aliens: Dark Descent é um jogo estratégico com elementos de terror, o que difere dos jogos anteriores da franquia Alien, que não possuem um gênero fixo. Quando vi o anúncio desse jogo, que apresentava uma visão isométrica e parecia ter um foco na estratégia, confesso que não me empolguei muito. Depois do grande sucesso de Alien: Isolation, eu esperava algo semelhante, mas era de se esperar que outro jogo do Alien fosse diferente. Vale mencionar que no ano passado joguei e zerei Aliens: Fireteam Elite, um jogo genérico do Alien que não vale nem um pouco a pena.

A história de Aliens: Dark Descent se passa em uma estação espacial infestada por aliens, resultando em caos e mortes de quase toda a tripulação, deixando apenas alguns sobreviventes, incluindo a personagem principal, Hayes. Ela é resgatada por um grupo de soldados espaciais liderados pelo sargento Harper, que estavam em uma espaçonave que caiu na órbita de um planeta. Sem ter para onde ir, os protagonistas decidem se unir aos sobreviventes em busca de uma forma de quebrar a quarentena reforçada que por sinal foi ativada pela nossa propia protagonista.

A história do jogo, apesar de ser apenas uma breve sinopse, é competente e segue um padrão comum da franquia Alien. A jogabilidade de Aliens: Dark Descent, apesar do trailer sugerir ser um jogo de pura estratégia, na verdade é um jogo que tem uma certa ação. No jogo, controlamos até cinco unidades individuais como um grupo, movendo-as de posição em posição. Podemos acender lanternas, colocar torres e tomar outras decisões estratégicas. As unidades também atiram enquanto se movem.

Particularmente, joguei o jogo no Xbox, mas também testei no PC, e achei que esse tipo de jogabilidade funciona melhor em computadores. Conforme o jogo avança, percebe-se que é um jogo tático, onde você dá ordens estrategicamente , em vez de simplesmente atirar sem parar.

Certamente, esse tipo de jogabilidade não agrada a todos, mas Aliens: Dark Descent não é um jogo ruim. Em vários momentos, fiquei bastante empolgado e me lembrou um pouco de XCOM, apesar das diferenças. À primeira vista, ele traz um pouco dessa lembrança.

Após jogar o jogo por 20 horas, concluo que ele não é para qualquer um. É um jogo complexo, com várias mecânicas que podem dificultar bastante, mesmo nas dificuldades mais baixas. Além disso, as tarefas e a gestão de tempo no jogo podem facilmente causar frustração devido à sua demora.

Em termos de gráficos e som, Aliens: Dark Descent é visualmente agradável e consegue transmitir bem o universo da franquia Alien. Em diversos momentos, você se sente como se estivesse assistindo a um filme do Alien devido à sua representação fiel. A combinação dos aspectos visuais e sonoros cria uma atmosfera excelente. Apesar de ser um jogo de estratégia e ação, ele consegue trazer um pouco do terror em momentos breves. O único ponto negativo em relação aos gráficos são as cutscenes e a modelagem facial dos personagens, que podem parecer estranhos.

Em relação ao som, como sempre digo, os tempos em que a trilha sonora de um jogo era ruim já passaram. Aqui, obviamente, a trilha sonora é muito boa e se encaixa perfeitamente com o que está acontecendo no jogo.

Aliens: Dark Descent foi uma surpresa para mim. Quando comecei a jogá-lo, não esperava muito, mas decidi testá-lo e tirar minhas próprias conclusões, sem me basear apenas em um trailer decepcionante. Para mim, foi uma experiência muito boa, mas entendo que esse tipo de jogo pode não agradar a todos. Se você gosta da franquia Alien, Aliens: Dark Descent é uma escolha certa. No entanto, para o público em geral que julga um jogo sem nem mesmo jogá-lo, acredito que será difícil se manter interessado por muito tempo neste jogo.

Prós:
- Atmosfera agradável
- adaptação legal da franquia alien.
- Sons e visuais


Contras:
- Cutscenes e expresoes feias.
- variedade de mecânicas no game podem deixar ele confuso.
- dificuldade um pouco desproporcional

Analise em video em breve :
https://youtu.be/njW9SwaHCcc

Couldn't stop playing. I can only describe it as survival horror real-time XCOM. This is the kind of game I want to see more of.

- 26 hours played
- Normal Difficulty

Aliens Dark Descent has to be one of the most brutal and unforgiving games I have ever played. Every aspect of the game is absolutely trying its hardest to beat you down. It’s an isometric, strategy game. You have a squad of 4 marines (5 later on) with which you embark on missions. You aim a cursor and press square to tell the marines where to go. You can have them sprint, take cover and perform a variety of special skill/class based actions. The missions are long and most of the time very gruelling.

There’s permadeath. So say bye bye to your marines forever if they get killed or kidnapped by Xenomorph’s. Each marine has a stress meter. If this gets too high they develop trauma. Trauma granting the marine negative traits such as taking stress damage when Aliens are around. Or a marine being an hypochondriac who takes stress damage when there’s no health kits in your inventory. There’s numerous Traumas to deal with and none of them are fun. That’s on top of each marine developing a negative trait of their own outside of and on top of Trauma. For example one of my marines was a bully, any marine on a lower level than the bully would take stress damage due to his presence. I also had a marine who would fire one extra ammo per burst of his rifle and that extra burst would always miss, costing me resources. Marines get injured. End up in Coma’s or lose limbs. Need to be carried to escape or saved from becoming an incubator via facehugger. And that’s just the stress from the marines aspect of the game. The levels don’t help.

That’s because every level has something different to offer. There’s 12 levels in total. You begin by exploring and uncovering the fog of war on the map. Your motion tracker beeps and alerts you to threats. You inch down hallways and check out abandoned facilities. It’s extremely tense and immersive. Missions have unique boss battles. Infinite horde sections that only end when an objective is complete. Horde mode style map defense for an allotted time. Stealth sections that work surprisingly well in this type of game. And mad dash sprints to the exit away from explosions or rampaging Xeno’s. Every mission has a meter at the top of the screen that fills up after combat. This will eventually level up from easy to medium where resistance gets a little tougher. To hard where it’s required for you to book it back to the escape vehicle and get out of there to redeploy another day. Missions take their toll on supplies and marines so you are allowed to make progress and then return to the ship. You can return to the mission and carry on where you left off after a day has passed. And here we get to even more stress management.

The Otago. Your base of operations. It’s here you spend time before and after missions. You can heal marines in the med bay. Upgrade weapons. Level up marines. Marines take actual in game days to heal injuries and you have a very limited amount of doctors per day to reduce the days needed to heal a marine. You can skip a day and return to a mission. But and it’s a big BUT. When you skip a day, there’s a little meter at the bottom of the screen that increases by 1 notch per day. After enough days have passed, the overall infestation of the planet will increase therefore making future mission deployments harder. Also after mission 5 this game introduces a death clock. 25 days to utter annihilation and game over. An actual save file failure. Many, many hours of game wasted if you happen to fall prey to this. Luckily I managed to beat the game with 10 days left but that was because I really knuckled down on missions 7, 8 and 9 and beat them in 1 deployment each.

So the game hates you and your marines. It wants you dead and puts you on the clock. Things always feel like they’re falling apart and I bloody loved this game. The story is very weak and plays with alien lore. Some may hate the unique beasts this game throws your way but I enjoyed them. The cutscenes are awful and facial animations are a few generations behind but overall in game graphics are quite nice. The ending I found very lacking. And it’s not an inviting game difficulty wise, even on normal. You can turn the death clock off but doing so forgoes trophies for completing the game. I didn’t want that.

There’s a lot of bugs as well and I don’t mean Xenomorphs. Character abilities missing off the skill screen menu which prevented me using them during the mission. Enemies bugging out in T pose. Button prompts not working no matter how much I spammed them, forcing a restart of the game. And don’t get me started on the god awful save system. There’s no manual save. You’re at the mercy of the auto save. You can save by welding a door shut and resting in a room (this also relieves stress) but this isn’t always possible. Dying sometimes meaning you have to repeat vast chunks of already completed sections. But despite this, Aliens Dark Descent was a great 26 hours spent gaming.

This game truly is great from a design AND execution perspective. The downside is that it's a very dense set of game systems (with a lot of great tutorials) and is also quite hard. Add to that the expectation of Aliens games being mediocre at best and a genre that doesn't get a lot of love and it's clear why this has flown under the radar.

Make no mistake though. This game is everything you've ever wanted if you're a fan of both Aliens and tactical strategy games.

Really want to know what these guys do next because it's so clear that they have a LOT of passion for doing things right.


Not for the faint of heart…

EDIT*
After I wrote this I started having some game breaking bugs, buttons stopped working, game wouldn’t launch, and the worst one, game wouldn’t save past a save file from yesterday (curiously after the game not launching bug)
So I was forced to restart my run on story mode, and my review went from 5 stars to this.
Don’t get me wrong, everything I said stands.
But it demands too much precision and difficulty, yet glitches out like crazy.
Until they fix it, this will be the final rating.
I love this game and what I makes me feel, but I hate how it was released (how typical)
Now
Do read my former review before I got glitches:


Aliens: Dark Descent was a bit of a mixed bag when initially revealed, I first thought it was gonna be a Diablo-styled dungeon crawler, then it was revealed to be a top down rts game, and that it would be kind of an indie release rather than a big budget game, with a price point of $40.
This could either be great news, or terrible news…

And now, after playing it for a while, I can safely say:

This is doing for Aliens, what Isolation did for Alien.

Every mechanic fits so well with the classic Alien mythos.

From deploying from badass transports, to slowly exploring the big, open areas you’re deployed in, quietly making your way through destroyed and desolate corridors, listening to the stress inducing motion tracker (THAT FINALLY WORKS AS IT DOES IN THE FILM) and finally, to engaging in desperate combat with xenos.

This game hits every mark of the classic Aliens film, and it FINALLY makes you feel like you’re actually in the world (Even if a part of me still wishes for another go at an immersive FPS)

Now, just like in the film, every decision counts…
Your marines and their mental health and literal health depend sorely on how YOU work as a commanding officer, meaning, depending on how you play, you can become Burke, Gorman, or in the best case possible…. Hicks.
It all depends on how you play and how you care for your marines.

Now, as the game progresses, things get tougher and tougher, some might say, relentlessly tough, but you do get a warning about this in the opening level.
The difficulty of your progress depends solely on how well you’ve managed to lead your squad in each mission, meaning, if you’re deep in shit by the first few hours, it’s on you buddy…. Not the game.

Stealth, knowing when to retreat, taking good care of your squad, and making the best possible decisions under a lot of constant stress are the best ways to push through the game.

Now, as for the story, even though the facial animations look, stiff… I’m actually quite surprised at the level of narrative this game has.

The cutscenes are a thousand times better produced than Redfall’s, being extremely well directed, voice acted, and with not visual stuttering, I was actually extremely impressed by them, and ended up being completely immersed in the story.

Now, it does have some negatives, I’ve heard of some people having lots of bugs (not xenos) however, I haven’t encountered a single one, so, I don’t know what that depends on, as said, the difficulty spike is INTENSE halfway through, and a lot of the times, the marines are often exaggeratedly voice acted, reminding me of the voice acting in Colonial Marines, and can sometimes break immersion when slowly making your way through creepy, desolate hallways.

It’s not that much actually, and I’m in fact extremely surprised at how well this genre works with Aliens when done right.

Maybe a future sequel that combines RTS with Shoulder Perspective TPS or straight up FPS would be my dream Aliens game, but, for the time being, I can only say I’m deeply surprised by this game, and it will definitely become my next, big, addiction after Aliens Fireteam Elite.

Aliens fans….. don’t sleep on this one.

It’s state of the bad ass art.

This review contains spoilers

This is Ripley, last survivor of the USS Otago, signing off.

Game breaking bug not long after the quite lengthy unskippable tutorial - searching Reddit it’s been a known issue for at least four months in the PS5 version. So, so, so wanted to like this. Aliens, strategic combat and the dire situations that creates, the recipe is here for something great.

Feels pretty authentic to the license and a sturdy, if quite generic game underneath. Just needs a bug hunt so I can have a stand up fight. Will happily revise upwards if these issues get met.

Truly a great game. The amount of anxiety you and your marines feel throughout the game is astonishing, as Aliens of every form lurk in the shadows. A couple of hits and you're done, stress will make your team crumble. The sound of the movement sensor is gonna be stuck in your mind, and although a little annoying, it will be a constant reminder that a single mistake will bring your doom.

The story kinda falls apart in the end, but it's interesting nonetheless. Must play IMO.

A lot of great gameplay ideas but rife with bugs and lacking in budget for things like animation and music. With a few patches and maybe a content update this game could be amazing. Still worth a purchase on sale if you like Aliens or XCOM but wanted it as a RTS.

I feel like Aliens: Dark Descent lacks the tactical thinking that would make it engaging and has so many mechanics that distract from what could've been a more interesting game had the developers focused more on gameplay.

It can be tense but comes with seriously annoying things. The game has a death clock in it, good grief. This is not like the OG Xcom where a campaign was randomized and could completed in a reasonable time frame or Majora's Mask where a major mechanic of the game is resetting progress, it's 30 hours. It feels like it totally disrespects the player's time. Ultimately, I quit because I felt I had better games to play.

Que jogo bom, a experiência de comandar todos os integrantes do esquadrão ao mesmo tempo é extremamente satisfatória. O jogo é muito difícil e bem longo tbm, mas não cansa pois toda missão é diferente, com um foco diferente. Um jogo obrigatório para todos que gostam do gênero, e finalmente um jogo isométrico com terror.

One of those games I really do want to love more but there's too many problems with it I just can't. Not enough enemy variety or boss variety, the inability to control one individual in the group or make one certain member the lead so that a certain class is in the front, how buggy it is (how Terribly buggy it is), and also a rather lackluster story. I feel a bit meaner with it considering there hasn't been any recent major news for expansions and such, and how many bugs have been on there for a long time and haven't been resolved.

If they make a sequel, I'd be excited for them to expand on this game and fix their mistakes. And I'm really really really hopeful for a sequel because I love the Alien series and I fuck with this game design.

Introduction
Aliens Dark Descent is a title that promises a lot but fails to deliver, thanks to the technical aspects affecting it. The game nails the spirit and look of the Alien franchise, but multiple issues keep it from being more than a diamond in the dirt.

They are everywhere!!!
The game is a real-time tactical title, with your squad of marines moving around levels as you try to accomplish objectives. These can go from rescuing hostages to taking out Alien queens or exploring abandoned facilities. As you explore the levels, the menacing Xenomorphs will hunt you down to eliminate you, and in some cases, your marines can be kidnapped by them or get a face-hugged to incubate them.

The gameplay is where the game shines, as players have a wide arrange of options when it comes to tackling Xenos. They can use shotguns to deal huge damage up close, the suppressive fire that wastes ammo but slows down their advance, or the classical flamethrower to clean up the nest. Your marines are paper thin, so you must use all the resources in your arsenal to succeed in this hardcore game.

Strong Point
The strong in this title is the HIVE system, where Xenos will patrol areas where you shoot at them and communicate as a Hive to find and destroy your squad. They are resourceful enemies, as they can appear out of vents, dodge bullets at super speed with maneuvers, spill acid when they die, and even unleash massive onslaughts where you get twenty of them in your face.

It begs the player to avoid conflict when possible and think about which battles to take and which to avoid. The more you fight and make noise, the more Xenos the hive will send your way, making the mission harder. There are also many different enemies, ranging from deranged cultists to the big Xeno Crusher that can shrug off bullets.

Art Design and Visuals
The game graphics are impressive, with environments capturing the essence of the Aliens films. During the battle, explosions and fire effects are long-lasting and crisp, giving a touch of color to the monotonous areas relying on grays and black.

Sound
Sounds are done perfectly, shown by the Aliens screeching as they come after you. Characters and marines' voice acting is great too, but it can be annoying as your squad screams "double time!" forty times in a row as they move around.

An option to reduce or turn off banter between the marines would have been appreciated, as their talking minimizes the game's tension and ruins the atmosphere it tries to set in.

Conclusion
Despite how good the game is, I cannot recommend it now. Multiple glitches will delete your marines, get them stuck on doors, or have enemies completely break the game. There is a good title here, but it needs many patches and fixes before it can be enjoyed without frustration.

If you enjoy and find the review helpful, please follow my curator StarsDeck! https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43679955/

It begs the player to avoid conflict when possible and think about which battles to take and which to avoid. The more you fight and make noise, the more Xenos the hive will sent your way making the mission harder. There is also a pleasant amount of different enemies, ranging from derange cultist to the big Xeno Crusher that can shrug off bullets.

Art Design and Visuals
The game graphics are impressive, with environments capturing the essence of the Aliens films. During battle, explosions and fire effects are long lasting and crisps, giving a touch of color to the overall monotonous areas that rely on grays and black.

Sound
Sounds are done perfectly, and it's shown by the Aliens screeching as they come after you. Characters and marines voice acting is great too, but it can be annoying as your squad screams "double time!" for the forty time in a row as they move around.

An option to reduce or disable banter between the marines would had been appreciated, as them talking reduces the tension of the game and ruins the atmosphere it tries to set in.

Conclusion
Despite how good the game is, I cannot recommend it at the moment. There are multiple glitches that will delete your marines, get them stuck on doors or have enemies completely break the game. There is a good title here, but it needs good deal of patches and fixes before it can be enjoyed without frustration.

If you enjoy and find the review helpful, please follow my curator StarsDeck! https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43679955/

Aliens fans rejoice, but just don't compare too heavily to the inspiration. If I were a teacher grading homework, I might have to change the score the minute I reach little XCOM.

One of the best uses of the Alien franchise in gaming. It really gives you that feeling of being a commander in the APC giving orders to your team in the field. It's not perfect but as it's made by an indy developer there were always going to be a few bugs here and there. I encountered a few but never any that ruined the game for me as such. The auto save feature is a god send in that regard, especially when you know how to force the game to auto save. The RTS approach works much better than a turn based game would've. The cutscenes are pretty good for a game that's not necessarily AAA. In terms of the narrative there is quite a lot of good material there. I can't say I was bored whenever the plot progressed and in some cases I looked forward to the next cutscene. The interface is user friendly and quite familiar to those of us who are used to XCOM.

There are a few things that the game doesn't tell you so here's a few pointers...

• Switch the action menu to pause instead of Slow Mo. This prevents you from feeling rushed and gives you time to think things through.

• When you can be sure to weld a few doors and build a shelter, doing so forces the game to auto save if you haven't done so for a bit.

• At the start be sure to extract when the awareness is close to the Level 2 creature entering the field, later on with the right weapons they are easy to kill but at the start not so much.

• Have a good balance in your team, when you have a few marines with different classes try and get one of each on the team. Recon for example can use a sniper rifle to silently take out enemies before detection.

• Focus on unlocking weapons, mines and Rocket Launchers are useful.

• When your marines are a high enough level start getting them upgrades in the barracks. I wouldn't bother with them at the start but they are handy in the mid to late game.

• Don't worry too much about the Infestation level, it maxes out at 5.

• Set up motion trackers every time you hit the perimeter of the last one you set up. This helps you see how busy the map is but also allows you to see where massive onslaughts are coming from.

• Don't panic in an Infinite Onslaught, there's always an objective to complete that will end it.

• Carry as many sentry guns as you can.

• When there are survivors on the map go and get them. They will come in handy on the Otago.

So those are my tips and tricks to help you get through the game, Good Luck Marines!

This review contains spoilers

There's a lot to like about this game, truthfully. The atmosphere and sound effects are great, the environments are all unique, and the general gameplay loop works well. It's super satisfying to upgrade your marines and watch them grow into a functional squad that gets further and further into some of these unforgiving missions. I always welcome more additions to the Alien franchise, as the first two films are among my favorite of all time.

That being said, there is an enormous list of problems this game has. The story is surface level at best, and frequently drawn out much longer than it needs to be. Some of these cutscenes just drag on and on while characters have the most one-note and predictable dialogue imaginable. Nothing will surprise you. You've seen this story a million times if you've consumed any sci-fi action media. I'm not really looking for anything groundbreaking here, but what we've got is completely dull. No memorable characters, enemies, or story beats. Also, the voice acting is pretty dogshit. Doesn't help that your marines shout the same 3 commands every time you direct them to do something -- it becomes tiresome very quickly.

The real issue, however, is the mountain of glitches and bugs you will encounter. The game refused to save during one mission, crashed during another, and sometimes just stopped allowing me to control my character altogether unless I reloaded a save or restarted the game. This wouldn't be much of an issue if you could manually save at any time, but it's tied to autosaves before story markers or whenever you rest. I lost 15+ minutes of progress FREQUENTLY throughout this game due to bugs, glitches, or completely unfair enemy spawns.

Marines will get caught on geometry. Enemies will clip into walls. I had one of my drones fly up into the ceiling, break, then become unusable for the rest of the mission. Enemies will see you through level geometry whilst you are unable to lock onto them. Character animations are stiff and lifeless. The game is full of typos and the subtitles do not match what the characters are saying. Sometimes the sound will completely cut out for a minute. The list goes on and on.

Be warned. About halfway through the game, a "game over timer" will be introduced. You'll be given twenty or so days to complete the remaining missions the campaign has to offer, or else you'll have to restart the entire game. The game does not bother to tell you how far into the campaign you are, so good luck gauging your time and trying to plan it out. I rested for too many days and had to crunch out the last 8 days of the timer, focusing solely on the primary objectives. I had to skip pretty much all side content that came in the latter half of the game.

The final mission is a complete joke. I won't spoil what happens, but it throws every gameplay mechanic out the window for the most lifeless, sluggish chase sequence I have ever experienced. Just left a completely sour taste in my mouth, especially given how the final area is such an awesome environment. It goes woefully underutilized.

Get the game if it's on sale and you're a massive Alien fan. It scratches that itch well enough, but quickly overstays its welcome.

You know what, I think they finally did it.

They finally broke the code and made THE Aliens game we all wanted ,but it plays in a way we never knew we needed.

This one has the tension, the strategy and the consequences. The trifecta of elements that was missing from every Aliens game.

This is the Alien Isolation of the Aliens branch.

A really advanced PAC-MAN Remake.

I don't know about you, but when I think of "Aliens", I think of a squad of marines fighting cultists in a dockyard.

Really good game, when it's not forcing you to do stealth (which the system is not great for), not properly informing you when you are unable to leave the upcoming mission, not letting you consistently find cover on items that look like you could, not warning you before defense sections end in cutscenes that will not let you re-gather turrets (a limited resource), or introducing instant-kill mechanics, forcing you to replay annoying sections.

Other than all that, it's really good. Those elements are introduced more as the game goes on, alongside bugs (which were also more prevalent as I went through the game).

Had a great time with this, I was lucky not to experience many bugs. Really hope they can refine the formula through some DLC or an eventual sequel. Story held up pretty well except for the ending.

As an Aliens and XCOM fan I had to try this once I saw it.

You'll see a lot of people compare this game to XCOM, which is a fair assessment, but the similarities end once you leave the squad selection screen. Unlike XCOM, Dark Decent is real time squad based action.

The game is split into two sections. Resource management on your base and sending out a squad of marines to sortie different locations on the planet.

Let's talk about your base, the Otago: I love a lot of what's here, from the different classes and abilities for your marines to the facilities you can use to upgrade and care for them. There's a distinct lack of flavor, missing music or notable interactions within the crew. All the themes from Aliens are here, but apart from some events that pop up after each day spent, there really isn't much going on.

Sending your marines on a mission is a different story. Although it takes some getting used to, there is a blend of stealth and guns blazing that I feel really hits the Aliens genre perfect. You never "want" to fight the Aliens head on, but if you have to you can stand your ground. I really like the different places you're sent to and set pieces other than one or two locations that seemed one color and bland.

Gameplay is where this game really shines. You have a pretty big arsenal of weapons and abilities to use. Without spoiling too much you'll get to use smart and sentry guns straight from the movies and the amount of sentries you can deploy brings a smile to my face. However you start to notice what works and what doesn't pretty quick.

I really like this game for what it brings to the table. Although the story is far from perfect I ended up actually liking the story characters. It brings a lot for being one of the better Aliens games in my eyes.

Challenging game of chess that’s always moving frantically and putting you on your back foot. A great way for fans of the series to spend 30 hours in their favorite universe. Lots of memorable missions. And the story sticks the landing.

Aliens Dark Des-cent deez nuts lmaooo


Promising start and authentic Aliens vibes, but I could not bring myself to finish it when the endgame began. Plagued with technical issues and story feels hollow and mundane.

One of those games that just isn't for me. I'm sure it's great if you're into this style of game but I just didn't find it was scratching the itch I was looking for. I was looking for something similar to XCOM but it beyond the base building, I don't think it like XCOM at all really.

XCOM style tactical RPG in aliens universe but real time with tactical pausing. RTS nature is handled by a novel system that moves the entire squad as one. Set pieces and atmosphere are amazing, and a good balance is struck between spooky aliens that are deadly when you rush in or make a mistake, but also giving you the option to fight back very effectively. The difference between getting utterly molested in a dark corner and completing an entire mission in one run is completely up to player skill, which I think is a symptom of a well-designed and balanced tactical RPG. I genuinely don't understand how people are failing due to the "doomsday clock" (although honestly I do agree its implementation had no use whatsoever). However, the story is lame, and both tech tree and weapon upgrades are linear and shallow. Also, some un-skippable cutscenes in-mission which annoyingly reorient and rotate the camera. The tutorial is also super long and utterly irrelevant. If the focus is not on the story, it needs to be easy to get out of the way.

That being said, these shortfalls are mitigated noticeably by the core gameplay loop being very satisfying and novel. However, the issue is this: a tactical RPG that relies on a core set of slick mechanics needs to be extremely precise and give you perfect control over those mechanics. Otherwise, the inherent challenge/difficulty of tactics can become frustrating and unfair.

For example, the real time control scheme is genuinely very interesting and usually efficient, but not being able to change what order your men go through a door or who is where in a line-up is very disruptive when timing and positioning is important, i.e. snipers and lines of sight. This is compounded by the extremely tight and close-quarters maps you are put in, which are otherwise well-designed and adds to the atmosphere and requirement for fore-planning. Later on, as the game puts you in harder and harder situations with more and more aliens in tighter and tighter gunfights. Acid damage from killing nearby aliens, another feature, becomes frankly quite obnoxious at this point.

The game started off at a solid 4 or even 4.5, as I don't think a story is super important for this type of game (look at XCOM). However, the flaws described really undermine what IS important for this genre of game, and they get worse as the game gets harder (by its own rules), which is a bad sign. I'd be very eager to see more experimentation with the format, though.

This review contains spoilers

It was a solid game overall, 83/100 for me; there are some really cool missions, albeit minus the ''stealth'' mission trying to trap Big G. I Highly recommend it if you're an aliens fan or strat.