Aliens: Colonial Marines Collection
Aliens: Colonial Marines Collection
Game
Game2023
Aliens: Dark Descent
Developer Tindalos Interactive
Aliens: Dark Descent is a real-time tactics video game developed by Tindalos Interactive in collaboration with 20th Century Games and published by Focus Entertainment. Set in the Alien universe, the game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 20, 2023. It received generally positive reviews from critics. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
459 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
79
LovedLoved
248 positive · 67 negative
95% range 74–83%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 248 | 67 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 13 | 1 | 121 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 2 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
10,032 of 11,449 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
79% recommend · 212 yes, 56 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 268 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (16,645 of 18,995 positive).
Players praise the game for its tense atmosphere and faithful adaptation of the Aliens franchise. [1][2][3] Many note its unique blend of real-time tactics, stealth, and horror, comparing it to XCOM. [1][4][5] Some reviewers report significant bugs and a frustrating timer mechanic that harms enjoyment. [6][7][8]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
I really enjoyed this game until I hit a progression breaking bug that I couldn't resolve. I reached out to the developers on multiple platforms and never received even a courtesy response. Therefore I cannot in good conscience recommend it despite its strengths.
- [1]
This game is criminally underrated; and was overshadowed by Final Fantasy XVI, Street Fighter 6 and Diablo IV which all released in and around the time it came out. It's atmospheric, stress inducing, insanely frustrating at times - but god has it got soul and passion baked into it and gameplay that punches way above it's weight class. So what is it? Well it's a struggle to describe this to people; it's Part RTS, …
- [2]
While Alien Isolation is a perfect homage to first Alien movie, Dark Descent is the same thing for sequel Aliens. It is as loyal to the source material as it can get. Setting, visuals, sounds, music, everything is a pure bliss for Aliens fan. It is basically XCOM game, but instead of turn-based combat, everything is realtime, and it makes every encounter very tense and very often leads to similar hopeless situations …
- [13]
Don't expect a polished experience, but do expect something pretty unique. The game still has a lot of bugs, including some rare campaign breaking ones, graphical glitches, performance issues, and other jankiness. If you can power through that, and I would recommend that you do, you will find a gem in the rough. There isn't a direct point of reference I can make, but it's something of a cross between XCOM 2 and an …
- [3]
A solid game that don’t leave much to be desired. It is without a doubt one of the best adaptations of the franchise and one of the few games to truly capture that atmosphere of visceral tension that Aliens projected, in a rather unique blend of real-time, squad-based tactical combat, stealth, and survival horror. Comparisons to XCOM do not do justice to what Aliens: Dark Descent delivers. They come from people with …
Summarised from 34 of the 327 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Aliens: Dark Descent sits at 79% positive across 315 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Aliens: Dark Descent received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 62% of critics. In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 31 out of 40. Rock Paper Shotgun praised how the game recreated the atmosphere of Aliens, using elements of the franchise to help build tension, "It's the first to really capture the white-knuckle vibe of setting up perimeters, quipping out that last line of top-tier banter you've been saving, and seeing the shapes on the motion tracker creep closer and squeal louder". Eurogamer felt that the game…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 459 · most liked firstalso always deeply funny that every sci-fi video game from 1999-2014 was trying to be Aliens, and copied everything except the...working class woman protagonist
neutral · AI labelView post →i have officially entered my skandi knife era. great for opening packages, skinning road kill, playing that game from the opening of Aliens, just a perfect size and form factor of knife
neutral · AI labelView post →I now kinda want to watch an Argentina-Paraguay game. The football equivalent of Aliens vs Predators.
neutral · AI labelView post →ALIENS “Game over, man, game over!” “Get away from her, you bitch!” “They mostly come at night. Mostly.” Great quotes from one of the best sequels in movie history! James Cameron’s ALIENS, starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henricksen, Bill Paxton & more was released OTD 40 years ago.
neutral · AI labelView post →Same. And yeah, there’s a lot to worry about, but if you come in my mentions to do the Bill Paxton “game over” scene from ALIENS, I’m blocking you
neutral · AI labelView post →Unpublished Aliens covers I did with colours by Simon Gough that were meant to connect to that rad Aliens game that came out a couple of years ago...
neutral · AI labelView post →"Look, man. I only need to know one thing: where they are." 📺: Aliens: The Computer Game, Activision, 1986. (C64 version)
neutral · AI labelView post →If Alien (1979) ended with the credits music from the Nintendo DS game Aliens Infestation (2011).
neutral · AI labelView post →Aliens: Dark Descent is 60% off right now, and I would highly recommend it. Absolutely one of the most incredibly tense games I've ever played. store.steampowered.com/app/1150440/...
positive · AI labelView post →Probably a card game called Asses & Aliens.
neutral · AI labelView post →Aliens are abducting our gamer (cow)girls 🐮👽🐰
neutral · AI labelView post →My new game zine! HOW DO ALIENS DO "IT"? is a game about confused teenage aliens trying to work out what their information-scarce society isn't telling them. It's playful, but approaches big themes lightly. It's pay what you like, but do pay nowt. #ttrpg kierongillen.itch.io/how-do-alien...
neutral · AI labelView post →Friends! We’re beyond excited to announce that "Elroy and the Aliens," our hand-drawn adventure game, is OUT NOW! 🚀 Here's the launch trailer 👇 #AdventureGame #IndieGames #Gaming
neutral · AI labelView post →I reviewed Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2. It's more fun-if-janky horde shooting with a big expansion made to player options and character building. It's pretty good. Read here: www.thejimquisition.com/post/aliens-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Incredibly scummy EULA. Long story short, they do track what you do on your computer outside of the game, including what sites you visit, and how specifically you engage with those sites, and for how long, amongst other things. They bury and obscure the terms by not providing the terms you're agreeing to in game, or provide a hyper link to read what you are agreeing to, they instead make you close the game, go to their website, read the terms, and realize they STILL don't have everything…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"This Time It's War. There Are Some Places You Just Don't Go Alone." That time when Square(soft) made an Aliens game for the MSX. 📖: Bi-Weekly Famitsu, June 1987,
neutral · AI labelView post →tossing a bit of a curveball with some xenomorph art. got sucked back into an old, niche aliens game so i just had to draw something funny red dog #xenomorph #aliens #art #digitalart
neutral · AI labelView post →the movie ALIENS: hey check out this allegory for the failures of the vietnam war every video game based on ALIENS: the vietnam war went great and kicked ass probably
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is criminally underrated; and was overshadowed by Final Fantasy XVI, Street Fighter 6 and Diablo IV which all released in and around the time it came out. It's atmospheric, stress inducing, insanely frustrating at times - but god has it got soul and passion baked into it and gameplay that punches way above it's weight class. So what is it? Well it's a struggle to describe this to people; it's Part RTS, Part Stealth Game, Part Rogue, Part Horror, Part Tactical game. It's a blend of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh, and Aliens: Dark Descent is on sale right now! I'm once again telling everyone to play Aliens: Dark Descent
positive · AI labelView post →10. Aliens: Dark Descent As a real-time strategy game, Dark Descent succeeds remarkably in replicating the tension of Aliens, you can be quickly overrun, you'll need to be sealing doors and creating choke points to deal with hunts as you explore, it's a masterpiece of creating tension with systems.
neutral · AI labelView post →Also some of the absolute best Star Wars Aliens in the Disney Era in Han and Lando's sabaac game
neutral · AI labelView post →I've been spending some time lately preparing the next installments of my series on the design & making of ALL the spaceships in the Alien franchise. In total, there should be 11 parts 😅 (including bonus sections on ground vehicles and ships from canceled projects). Game over, Aliens: here we come.
neutral · AI labelView post →Aliens (エイリアンズ) by Konami is a retro game for arcades from 1990.
neutral · AI labelView post →I really enjoyed this game until I hit a progression breaking bug that I couldn't resolve. I reached out to the developers on multiple platforms and never received even a courtesy response. Therefore I cannot in good conscience recommend it despite its strengths.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →That's always how it goes.A hidden gem like this comes out,and then it just disappears no updates, no DLC, no sequel. Its such a shame, because this game is absolutely incredible.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →New Milo Rossi video dropped! Ancient Aliens drinking game www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DXV...
neutral · AI labelView post →While Alien Isolation is a perfect homage to first Alien movie, Dark Descent is the same thing for sequel Aliens. It is as loyal to the source material as it can get. Setting, visuals, sounds, music, everything is a pure bliss for Aliens fan. It is basically XCOM game, but instead of turn-based combat, everything is realtime, and it makes every encounter very tense and very often leads to similar hopeless situations as seen in the movie. Now I only hope that sometime in the future we will also…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →New Aliens game is available 🔥
neutral · AI labelView post →Joining in on the WE NEED PLANT SIMS chant because I need plant sims AND aliens in my game. Aliens can't be doing all this heavy lifting.
neutral · AI labelView post →Strange Planet is one of the best things out there, hands down. #aliens #ttrpg #rpg
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is so broken. On engine level it has horrible memory leaks, after some time on longer missions the fps just keeps dropping and dropping till its around 20fps. Other problems being elevators: combined with having a marine with a drone with you. If your drone is downed and you cannot get to it to repair it, elevators wont give you the option to go anywhere. You are having hard time using flame throwers at all on facehugger eggs, the flame targeting does not work on eggs and unit…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The pre-production work for this canceled game is fantastic. It's probably my fav Aliens game in an alt-universe.
neutral · AI labelView post →A solid game that don’t leave much to be desired. It is without a doubt one of the best adaptations of the franchise and one of the few games to truly capture that atmosphere of visceral tension that Aliens projected, in a rather unique blend of real-time, squad-based tactical combat, stealth, and survival horror. Comparisons to XCOM do not do justice to what Aliens: Dark Descent delivers. They come from people with little critical consideration and can easily mislead unsuspecting potential…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm painting up some miniatures for the Aliens board game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Playing Message From Aliens, the fun and normal puzzle game about deciphering an alien language
positive · AI labelView post →The only narrative text in the game is at the end credits. It’s long but here it is. The LLM is actually just making a federal government take on it, which is actually kinda funny. —————————————————— I see the player you mean. PLAYERNAME? Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts. That doesn't matter. It thinks we are part of the game. I like this player. It played well. It did not give up. It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a…
neutral · AI labelView post →Aliens: Dark Descent is one I just keep recommending every sale because there's very little like it, a real-time strategy game that captures the tension of the movie so, so god damn well. You've no idea how nailbiting it can be.
positive · AI labelView post →Board for the Operation: Aliens game, based on the abandoned Aliens cartoon series from 1993. Purest pop art.
neutral · AI labelView post →People's perception of arcade games is often skewed by what was available to them at the time. I've played some modern arcade games that are just utterly bullshit. Played an Aliens lightgun game where one credit was $2 and I died in literally ten seconds. And I've 1cc'd House Of The Dead!
neutral · AI labelView post →Free creepy Aliens fan game Aliens: Redacted REDUX released #Aliens #FreeGame #PCGaming #Retro #FPS
neutral · AI labelView post →It is a fun game, but the timer in the end is really annoying and take the fun out of finishing the game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to love this game. I do. First few levels are great. They absolutely NAILED the sounds, look, and feel of the Aliens movie with the tactical squad experience, and I loved hearing the banter echoing Hudson, Drake, Vasquez and co... but the bugs... the bugs are horrific (absolutely no pun intended). Yeah, I got hit with the Atmospheric sabotage bug in spite of consciously leaving the sus survivors locked in their rooms, and that was frustrating enough, but it was Montero level that…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What's this, a new game?... An old game!? Aliens Go Home ReRun coming 2026! youtu.be/qyXlzccQ11Q
neutral · AI labelView post →Yes, I called the new ALIEN RPG cinematic 'Operation Leading Edge' as a homage to publishers of the original ALIENS RPG, Leading Edge Games. It suits the nature of the adventure and works as a fond throwback; even though the game system wasn't great it was my only source of ALIENS info at the time.
neutral · AI labelView post →The sneaking around in this game doesn't work, as half the time there's nothing to hide behind The ammo system and stress systems are terrible and you spend all of your resources just dumping your healing into a lame stress meter I get it, it's a strategy game, yet for the xenos to pixel peak me like it's a cs2 comp game and then call 30 more xenos is a little dogwater They also give you an APC, it's nice to have around and also makes your squad larger from 4 to 5, yet it's more difficult to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starts off fun, really fun, until... Guess what? A timer starts. You go through a few missions, you get the hang of it, then you're told you have X days before it's game over. You have no idea how far you are with the game, nor any way to know how much time you may actually need to finish it, all you can be sure of is: marines need to rest if they get wounded; you won't have time to level everyone, so if you stick with your best ones you'll have to run a mission then waste 2-3 deploys…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →28 hours into my campaign and I ran into a game breaking script bug ending my entire campaign, unable to progress. Simple google search shows this was reported many times at release yet here it is three years later. Apparently it's some kind of script that fails to fire and could be fixed by starting the mission over, however there is no manual save (forced ironman basically) and only up to ten autosaves. If it has gone over that limit then there's no way to restart the mission and the game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Aliens: Dark Descent is a hidden gem that is bold enough of a project to bring something revolutionary into the tactical shooter genre. That's a relief to see that some developers are brave enough to experiment! The unique features: 1) Squad as a single entity: This isn't a typical shooter where you babysit one hero. You control a cohesive squad as a unit. It’s a brilliant mix of RTS elements and squad tactics. The way the AI handles your orders while you focus on the bigger picture feels…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My favorit video game ❤️Monsters vs Aliens
neutral · AI labelView post →Pros: Gameplay is fun. The levels are designed well enough I suppose. Can be difficult and unforgiving at times which is a pro for me in this type of game. It has a good level of challenge. I did hate those sections were they take away your guns and make you hide as Maeko. They weren't hard but were very boring. Cons: The writing in this game is so bad. Spoilers ahead but your not really missing anything. Basically, a cult for the Xenos has spread around crates of Xenos to infect this planet…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was surprisingly good and enjoyable! To get it out of the way, I'm not big into the Aliens IP as I'm a chickenshit when it comes to the survival horror aspect the IP is known for and have limited knowledge of the franchise, but this game plays out like an RTS XCOM with slow motion mechanics. After watching a couple of friends play a mission or two, I decided I'd give it a shot. The story is told rather well and is surprisingly lengthy, the atmosphere is immersive, the tension was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Aliens: Dark Descent is another I'm very frequently recommending, but you'll know why if you play it, it's one of the most tense, anxiety inducing games I've ever had the joy to experience. Very much does for Aliens what Alien Isolation did for Alien.
positive · AI labelView post →Out Now: Fine, Whatever! - The New Game of Aliens and Pigs a collage world full of aliens and pigs. find one million points. consider the realities you uncover. they're watching you. made with Plano. Free! play on desktop or phone. meal-ticket-games.itch.io/fine-whatever
neutral · AI labelView post →Don't expect a polished experience, but do expect something pretty unique. The game still has a lot of bugs, including some rare campaign breaking ones, graphical glitches, performance issues, and other jankiness. If you can power through that, and I would recommend that you do, you will find a gem in the rough. There isn't a direct point of reference I can make, but it's something of a cross between XCOM 2 and an RTS. Stealth is very important in this game, as moving around undetected is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its incredibly stressful, my team always gets massacred, and I'm not very good at it. Needless to say, its great
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Today’s special bonus edition of #RandomRPGCover is the first edition of the “Aliens”-inspired board game Space Hulk, released in 1989. I loved this game, painted a ton of minis for it, and had the Deathwing and Genestealer expansions too. #warhammer #oldhammer #40k #warhammer40000 #boardgames
neutral · AI labelView post →Fun game and lots going for it but I cannot recommend it because there are many game breaking progression soft locks that permanently prevent you from getting 100% and prevent you from unlocking all the gear upgrades (xenocrates) for your team. Mission 6 has borked objectives that don't register properly and lead to a broken save, giving you 3 choices: Reload at the beginning of the level (if you can and if the aggressive autosave function hasn't already overwritten that far back), give up on…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Love the option to have slow/stop mode as a tactical option, TBH only way I can ever play a RTS remotely competent. If they ever update the Game that bugs don't bar you from reaching all achievement (Datapads) I would consider trying for 100%
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wow. Absolutely loved this. Perfect mix of realtime tactics, realtime stealth, and xcom. I did not expect to love that game as much as I did.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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