Poor Colonial Marines. ACM was originally going to come out in 2001 for the PS2, but was cancelled before release. The game was thrown around until it landed in Gearbox's lap who could give less of a shit about it, instead focusing on Borderlands 2 and... Duke Nukem Forever. Timegate was left to finish the game, but they weren't highly experienced at making games. It was finally released in 2013, 12 years after the announcement. The story is pretty simple, centering around a rescue group of Colonial Marines trying to find the Sulaco. There are characters but they're all one-dimensional. The only one I remember is O'Neil because he hangs around you the whole game. The voice acting is pretty good except for Hicks who could give less of a shit about his performance. Gameplay is in a different boat, it feels so generic. There are only 11 missions in the game which seems short, but each one should take around 30-40 minutes to complete. The levels are all pretty linear and your objectives aren't too hard. Either find some things, collect things, kill things, etc. It is an Aliens game so you would be fighting aliens right? Yes and no. The Aliens are there... but there are also human enemies too. Why humans? They do have a purpose in the plot, they killed hundreds of Marines, not sure why though. It's not a one time thing, they are present in the majority of the game. Only 3 levels in the game are entirely focused on Aliens. Some are focused on entirely humans and some have a mix of both of them. The alien AI is pretty infamous for being trash. The game was probably patched quite a bit before I played because I didn't run into a ton of busted AI. Except the Husks which would deactivate and reactivate constantly, and Lurker aliens that would just stand in the open when they're supposed to...lurk. Aliens mainly just seem to rush at you and aren't too hard to deal with. The weapons you have are pretty poor. The only decent one is the shotgun because other guns have terrible accuracy. Guns like the pistol do fuck all, only useful for taking out facehugger eggs which you'll do like once. The levels felt and look pretty generic. The only parts I liked were the beginning of mission 5 where you have no weapons and have to use stealth to escape, and mission 10 which I had fun with. Other than that, every stage melted into the generic shooter category, cover-based modern dogshit. I've experienced a ton of cheap deaths however. There would be so many times a Xenomorph would spawn behind me and kill me in a few hits, it's bullshit. Bosses are pretty terrible. There are 3 of them. One you have to punch out in a mech and it barely works. One is a giant charger which you just shoot. The final boss, the Alien Queen is so disappointing. All you do is flip a few switches and launch her into space. The game's presentation is pretty awful. The graphics and textures look muddy and outdated, looking like an original Xbox game. Lighting is god awful. Character models have no facial animations so they all look dead. Bishop is the only exception. 

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