Has the Alien franchise become cursed when it comes to telling a good story? Released a full 27 years after the iconic film Aliens hit theaters, Colonial Marines is intended as the movie’s true sequel. Ignoring later Alien films (which some cinephiles won’t mind one bit), the not-too-scary campaign mode begins with a group of United States Colonial Marines investigating the USS Sulaco, the spaceship that transported the doomed marine contingent in Aliens to the planet LV-426 to discover what happened to the crew. Not a bad setup for a shooter based on a terrifying big-screen sci-fi classic, but the execution is strictly straight-to-Netflix.

This is really a review of two games: a derivative story campaign (that you can play solo or with up to three friends in co-op) and a riveting, far superior multiplayer mode that allows you to compete as marines or alien xenomorphs in online matches. Considering Colonial Marines’ relatively long gestation period — roughly six years — it seems more attention was paid to fine-tuning multiplayer than to the campaign.

Why do we feel campaign mode was neglected? It’s the little things you notice first…dated graphics, poor or nonexistent lip-synching, and repetitive environments. Story-wise, your character (Corporal Christopher Winter) is no Ripley; he’s about as generic a grunt as they come. And because of the haphazard lip-synching, you may not even know if it’s Winter or another male character speaking at any given moment. The dialogue, while occasionally attempting the bravado and testosterone-fueled repartee of the movie, does little to distinguish your squadmates from one another.

Despite an apparent death in Alien 3 that should’ve placed him very far away from the USS Sulaco, the character of Corporal Hicks (voiced by original actor Michael Biehn) returns in Aliens: Colonial Marines, as does Aliens veteran Lance Henriksen, who portrays a different model of the synthetic Bishop. The game’s cliffhanger ending leaves open the possibility that both characters/actors may return for a sequel.

As you creep down successive corridors on the Sulaco, xenomorphs pop out of their hiding spots on cue to pounce, spit, and slash at you. Armed with a powerful assortment of rifles, shotguns, pistols, submachine guns, and Aliens-specific weapons like the flamethrower and Smart Gun, you can also pull out your motion detector to determine the number and location of enemies. The problem here is that once the on-screen indicator prompts you to whip out your motion detector, it’s usually too late — xenomorphs will swarm you while you’re trying to juggle between the detector and your weapon. In practice, the beep to look at your indicator is warning enough that an attack is imminent.

To keep things interesting, human opponents, in the guise of a militarized strike team belonging to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation — the same company that authorized the Colonial Marine mission in the film — try to guard the corporation’s xenomorph samples and research from prying eyes by shooting you. The dumb enemy A.I. is matched only by your inability to shield yourself from sprays of bullets since the game advises you to “take cover” behind objects by pushing the crouch button…which does almost nothing to stop you from getting hit.

The campaign improves a little once you’ve left the Sulaco for the derelict terraforming colony on the surface of LV-426, where you’ll usually be paired with one or two A.I. squadmates and the environments and action sequences become more varied, with you defending locations and fighting bosses. But even the game’s attempts to evoke the claustrophobic tension of an Alien attack may evoke more laughs than gasps: one sequence in which you’re crawling through a sewer unarmed, only to have Alien arms drop from above and claw at the air, has all the comic awkwardness of a cheesy animatronic theme-park attraction.

Special weapons like the Smart Gun and the Crusher xenomorph can be unlocked in multiplayer.

When playing as a xeno in multiplayer, you can “see” marines’ heat signatures through walls.

If you buy Colonial Marines primarily for multiplayer, the best reason to sample the campaign is to rank up your marine to unlock new weapons and weapon abilities (such as alt-fire modes, aiming attachments, and increased ammo), as well as discovering more powerful legendary weapons from the films like Hicks’ shotgun. Poor xenomorph players will have to depend totally on multiplayer to advance in ranks and upgrade their alien abilities, such as lunging attacks and acid-spitting, but you’ll have a great time doing so.

The radical difference between the marine and xenomorph sides — that aliens can crawl up walls and ceilings, and through vents — keeps the multiplayer action fresh and entertaining. Colonial Marines’ excellent multiplayer features four different modes: Team Deathmatch, Extermination, Escape, and Survivor. Team DM is what you’d expect — a team of aliens versus a team of marines, with up to 12 players shooting or slashing at each other. Extermination is similar to King of the Hill, with Marines trying to defend bombs set to blow up egg nests while xenos oppose them. Our favorite mode, Escape, captures the feel of the Alien movies: a squad of marines tries to progress through a linear level, stopping at periodic objective points, while an opposing xeno team tries to pick them off one by one…with no respawns for the marines. In Survivor, a group of marines tries to withstand waves of xeno attacks for as long as possible, Horde-style; players then switch sides and whichever team lasted the longest wins the game.

Unlike the movies, which relied on atmosphere, ominous sounds, and sharp surprises to frighten the bejeezus out of you, the life of these space marines is far more Doom-like. Xenomorphs in the story campaign don’t stalk you — they just lunge, which negates what made them so scary in the first place. Replace them with velociraptors, zombies, or demons, and you’d have essentially the same game. This all makes for a passable, if unremarkable, shooter that’ll surely disappoint fans hoping for the kind of polished, singularly cinematic experience that’d fit nicely into the Alien mythos.

Have Aliens been here? If only they left behind a clue...

PUBLISHER: Sega  •  DEVELOPER: Gearbox Software  •  ESRB: Mature  •  MULTIPLAYER: 12 on Xbox Live  •  ACHIEVEMENTS: Mixed difficulty  •  COST: $60  •  RELEASE DATE: February 12, 2013

On Xbox 360

+ The superior multiplayer modes may be worth the cost of admission alone.

+ Cooperative mode lets you tackle the story campaign with up to three pals.

– The derivative story campaign lacks teeth and polish.

? If Weyland-Yutani had its own strike team, why’d they send in the marines in the first place?

6.0