Aliens: Fireteam Elite review: Finally, co-op action worthy of this franchise

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  It’s hard to get a good look at the titular monsters in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, mostly because they’re otherwise flanking your squad and raising interstellar hell. The results are a surprising blast.

2013’s Aliens: Colonial Marines was arguably the last huge video game to focus on the “Aliens with an S” side of all things xenomorphic. Between flashy trailers and Gearbox’s reputation at the time, series fans got their hopes up that the 1986 James Cameron film would finally inspire a modern shooter worth a loud oorah. Not so much.

This week, the letter S returns to PCs and game consoles with far lower expectations in the form of Aliens: Fireteam Elite. And I gotta say, this three-player co-op romp’s success makes me angry about Colonial Marines all over again.While losing hours to this new game’s faithful, no-frills fun, I imagined Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford sitting next to me. Between missions, I would ask him why his development teams couldn’t surpass a little-known indie studio’s slimmed-down excuse to rev up machine guns and flamethrowers with friends.

Still, a genuinely fun Aliens game is better late than never. And this is much better.