Aliens: Dark Descent is a really really good game, a fantastic aliens game and just an all round fun top down tactical TPS that somehow manages to bring the tension of alien isolation with the over the top action of aliens fire team elite.
Dark Descent is quite a hard game, it's often compared to games like xcom when it has more in common with cannon fodder, this is not a turn based tactics game but rather real time with pause...or slow down. Marines are pretty decent at auto targeting enemies and unless you are using a skill you really only have to worry about positioning, here in lies my biggest issue in that you cannot control individual troops, the game really does not want you to micro manage and to be fair most of the time it's a blessing but sometimes you just want certain troops in certain areas etc and the fact you can't is a bit annoying.
But overall combat is incredibly satisfying and tense, it somehow perfectly captures the oorah of aliens mixed with the tension of alien. You'll find most combat encounters to be very stressful as your marines get backed into corners and choke points as they blast away aliens, if aliens get to close your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and even if you survive the acid might get you. With massive maps packed with enemies and collectibles, this is a big game and that's not even talking about troop and base management. I absolutely loved the gameplay loop of getting your backs against the wall and fighting to extract your team. Whilst this does have a day cycle like xcom in which each passing day heals your team and gives you credits, you'll soon learn this is all ticking down and every day spent healing your team could be your last.
Story in this game is very interesting, I wouldn't say the actual conflicts the characters have are all that great but the overall bigger picture really change up the formula, yes you'll still be seeing weyland yutani acting like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and everyone reacting like shocked pikachu but it's the strange cult, psykers and VERY interesting final mission that pushes the alien lore to new heights without running the already established lore (cough prometheus cough).
That's not to say it's all great, this game has a few blemishes, with some bugs locking me out of quests, some quests just completely breaking and audio and visual glitches aplenty, nothing game breaking but it was annoying. There are also a few very horrible stealth sections with one early on that made me question if this game was going to suck, difficulty spikes and just generally unfair rng at times and whilst the final mission is interesting lore wise, gameplay wise it's a massive wet fart.
But, despite the negatives I truly think this one of the best alien games ever made, incredible attention to detail, amazing tactical gameplay and an interesting lore shakeup that was very interesting to see, I know isolation is an incredibly hard game to beat when it comes to alien games but this does come close.
