This game is a RPG, it has RPG elements (character progression, story etc) so why is it in the general non RPG section?
the single player is indeed underwhelming, not terrible just very meh, with the un advanced ai and not enough suspense and fear in the game. the guns are great though and the pacing in the game is right. short at around 6 hours, its still i'd say worth it for a fan of the series needing more of fix. clearly not for a purist and their are indeed far better games in the genre. i'd say wait 'til its $10-15 if you only want the single player experience.
what i really think is enjoyable though is the mutliplayer, and if it continues to grow, mainly with additions of new maps then there is a decent value in the game at a higher price. played about 8 hours of multi and that indeed does capture the feeling of aliens in my view. especially the survival and escape modes which are 4 vs. 4. playing the aliens takes a bit getting used to and in my view not as fun as playing as the marines, still what is nice is that you play as one side and then the other in each mode.
i'm not sure if the two people above played multiplayer as i'm not sure if that's available to illegal versions which are most likely the ones played but multi is definately where the value is. and not to digress but as much as pirates cause us more drm and higher prices, i'd say the opinions of "anchor gamers" dilute objective discussions on a games merit which may be the worse crime. what i find really perplexing is people who have the money/job and still pirate. they shouldn't be shocked though when the layoff karma police cornhole them someday.
Since pirating is supposed to have all these consequences (it has not, video game producers add DRM and the rest to control the supply, that is why they do not care to hurt the legit customer since they know they have to hurt the legit customers to get their ways), this game seems a perfect example:
since the SP is at best sub par and MU is reported as good or very good, why not make it right from the box a MU game only? MU gaming in these days is synonym with Internet connection (very few developpers bother with adding a LAN, or even when LANning is possible, you still have to connect to the Internet to LAN)
By pushing a sub par SP game, this studio gives meat to pirats. Only the MU part is worth buying? Make it only a MU game from the start.
Win/win situation. Since the hacked version might not include the MU game, it means that pirats could not have got their way. And players who pirat to play test a game wont be given the justification of it as they are right now with a sub par SP.
Otherwise, the current situation is also win/win once the correct objectives are set:
if you want to push DRM policies (and others) on the ground of figthing policy, feeding the customer basis with games that justify pirating them to play test, well, releasing a MU game with a sub par SP section does the work.