No player base to play with.

Game mechanics, game play, perks, weapons, maps are decent +
Frankly no complaints, as the game delivers everything expected, not much more.

Where the game fails is that there is only 15 Missions, when you include the DLC.
If this game delivered 30 maps total (including DLCs) I would be able to reccomend this as a top Tier game!
Alien Fireteam Elite is indeed a really good game, just needs more content.
Problem being that while configuring your weapons and your builds are great fun, you have to play them on maps that are too repetitive. I have maxed out half of the classes and I am already bored of all the maps. We need DLCs containing lots more maps and or even more perks, fund it with some class DLCs or something, get to work!

And as a last note, imagine procedural generated maps, it would put this game up with or above Vermintide and Dead By Daylight.

How can I say this... The game is worth your money, but its currently not worth your time?
I am sad to not be able to recommend it currently and I really hope this change in the future.. :-)

Alien franchise is old. Can you even believe that the bloody thing was around since 70s? Yet it's one of those things that never die. Those that are always around. There's always something. Movies (just recently, we've got ourselves Alien: Romulus, which, despite all of its obvious problems, was quite good), comics, and, of course, video games. Shocking, I know. I mean, it's not unusual (shut up, Carlton) for big franchises to have video game adaptations. Especially the old ones, since movie-based games were way more common in times when production was cheaper. But the thing is – it's a bit more interesting than usual with the Alien. Think about it. Usually, the source defines adaptation. Right? I mean, it's hard to imagine The Terminator to solve puzzles on MYST island. But with Alien? It's like we have not one but two radically different sources at this point.

The first one is, obviously, the original. 1979 Ridley Scott's philosophical horror. Say whatever you want, it was more about hidden meaning than scary creature killing Nostromo crew. Which led us to Prometheus. A movie that lots of people disliked because, well, it wasn't about killing. It was all Graham Hancock. If you know what I mean. Annunaki and sh*t. And... Let's just say at that point of time, it was not what audience wanted. Why? Well, because of our second source – 1986 movie Aliens. Directed by the master of mainstream entertainment,James Cameron, it was exactly that – entertainment. That's just what Cameron does. He takes promising ideas and he makes them entertaining. He's kind of a genius in that field. An old Harlan Ellison's short story, for example, gave us The Terminator. One of the most recognizable things in popular media.

And Aliens? It was the same kind of stuff. What was it about? Well, it had space marines. Those were shooting aliens. That's it. That's the entire thing. There was nothing else. Sounds dumb and yes, it was dumb. Yet it was great. Why? Because Cameron, that's why. Think about second Terminator movie. What was the meaning of it? Who cares! Screw the meaning, it had Arnie on bike, helicopter chase and that CGI dude! Same thing with the Aliens. It had Sigourney Weaver fighting a huge Xenomorph in that power loader, it had lots of monsters, and, of course, there were those memorable lines. Admit it, we all had one of those friends who kept screaming “Game over, man! Game over!” back then for every bloody occasion.

Why is all that important for us to understand? Because naturally, such a duality affects games. Look at that old Alien game. No, not the first one, which was just a Pac-Man clone for Atari 2600, the one that came out in 1984. It was a pretty complicated experience. We took control of Nostromo and our goal was, naturally, to get rid of alien. Or escape on Narcissus shuttlecraft, since game was non-linear and gave us lots of freedom. While going through more than 30 rooms, we were supposed to track Xenomorph by using special tools, but guess what? Xenomorph wasn't the only creature on board. Jonesy, the cat, was there too and our trackers? Those didn't know the difference. Therefore it was hard to tell what's moving – our furry friend or that living murder machine from space (where no one can hear you scream). It was a fun game that captured movie's atmosphere pretty well. Now, Aliens movie comes and... Yeah. KONAMI's arcade. Quite awesome. Yet nothing but juicy shooting.

So, history aside. What kind of game is Fireteam Elite? Well, obviously, it's Cameron, not Scott. At least, that's what it tries to be. Don't expect it to be anything like Alien: Isolation. Which was all Scott. The idea here was to make one of those co-op shooters that are popular nowadays. People love such games, market is not overcrowded, while before HELLDIVERS II dropped, there was a big chance for a solid new AAA project to take the lead. All we needed is a name to make people bother. Alien? Was one of such names. So, here we are. Having one of them always-online shooters with Xenomorphs. Yet nobody plays it. Why? Well, because it sucks. That's why.

See, the problem with this game is not the idea. The idea was fine, there's nothing wrong with it. If something, it made perfect sense for Alien franchise to have something like that. The problem is – this here isn't a AAA game. That certain something that makes difference between one of them Cameron's hits and cheesy B-movies just isn't there. If something, this game feels indie. As far as I know, it's the very first game for its makers – Cold Iron Studios. Most likely, you didn't even hear of 'em. So... Who are they? Well, the thing is – Cold Iron is pretty much our ol' pals Cryptic. City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter... Those guys. An MMO crowd. Cryptic is owned by the Embracer Group now and at this point f*ckers fired pretty much everybody (games like STO are moved to other teams who make living by keeping the old MMOs alive), so... Yeah. Cold Iron Studios. And it's not a bad thing. At least our guys had experience, right? Unfortunately, that didn't help 'em. They didn't need the experience here. They needed budget. Think about it. There are two approaches on such games. You can go cheap and make Deep Rock Galactic, or you can go expensive and make HELLDIVERS II. Both games knew their nature, both ended up being cool for what they are. Fireteam Elite? It has budget of Deep Rock, yet it tries to be HELLDIVERS. Should I say that things just don't work that way?

The good thing about this game is that it'll run on a toaster. Pretty old one too. Which is always a good thing for an online-only game (no idea what BLIZZARD were thinking while making their Diablo IV so demanding). Doesn't look too bad either. I mean, it's far from looking good, but you know. It's tolerable. The real problem is – there's close to no content here. Single player campaign and multiplayer are merged into the same exact thing and that thing has only four episodes, three short missions each. You know the drill. Clear the room, assemble, repeat. For 12 times. Because after that? There's nothing. Well, aside from DLC, but even if you'll pay for all bells and whistles, you'll only get some ugly skins and one extra episode. Yes, only one episode. That's it.

And yes, after such a long introduction, that's pretty much everything I have to say about this game. That it's cheap and somewhat playable game with close to no content or variety in it. Even Predator franchise did better in its Hunting Grounds. I mean, running through the same dull maps again and again with no end? There's no way in Hell... I mean, space you'll do that. Most likely, you'll just finish the story with bots (spoiler alert – even that doesn't worth it, since story is barely there) and that'll be the end of it for you. And it's both sad and weird. I mean, what went wrong? Why was it so hard to produce more maps? Even with quantity over quality approach, I can see myself staying longer if there were lots and lots of maps to choose from. I like the franchise, skill system (yes, it's the only interesting thing here to mention) is rather cute and, let's just admit it, it's nice to have an online game that'll run on your old laptop. But no. Not only they failed to make proper AAA impact, they didn't provide us with enough content. Which ultimately kills all the purpose. Dixi.