The Predator campaign is a mix of the two, and though the Predator can hold his own in a fight with his wrist blades, photon cannon, and various other weapons he can also cloak to become almost impossible to detect by humans. Aliens can see through the cloak however, and most fights between Xenomorphs and Predators are resolved in melee combat. Like them however, the Predator can execute stealth kills on their enemy which usually result in the Predator ripping their head and spine clear from their torso as their horrified face looks on. Rated M...for mature.

The issue with each campaign is that they are fundamentally flawed. The Marine campaign starts off with fending off alien attacks in the dark and cramped facility, turning into fighting them in more open and well-lit areas before finally making your primary enemy become combat androids. The Xenomorph campaign has a similar fate, and given the androids keep ability of sight and hearing it makes fighting them a chore. The Predator campaign easily starts off as the most flawed of the three, as while stalking human enemies is quite fun the same cannot be said when fighting Xenomorphs thanks to the broken melee combat system.

Melee combat is based around a rock paper scissors mechanic; block beats light attacks, heavy attacks beats block, and light attacks beat heavy attacks due to their speed. However, given the long windup, a heavy attack has serious gameplay issues as you can easily drop, block and jab at the enemy with a light attack, interrupting their attack while leaving them wide open for a continued beating. Additionally, melee attacks are weak to the point that it is (no pun intended) comical when even a mere plainclothes scientist takes multiple swipes of your claws or blades before he or she is killed. The weakness of melee attacks is never more apparent than with the Predator, as more often than not you will fight aliens in groups of three or more at once. To avoid getting swarmed it is best to back into a corner and block, and just jab at any who try a heavy attack. However, since each one will take five or six light attacks to kill and attempting anything stronger than that leaves you open to get quickly clawed up it makes melee combat an absolute chore.

As the Marine you cannot crouch, which is fine when fighting the alien races but is sorely missed when fighting the mass of gun-toting androids. As the Xenomorph you will constantly fight with leaving the auto-climb option on which lets you automatically transition from wall to floor and vice-versa, as with it off the game can become picky with what is considered to be an allowable transition change and with it on you will often accidentally climb on objects. The Predator has a nifty leap that lets you reach higher ground, but effectively using it in combat can be difficult since you have to aim it at where you wish to leap and hope that the surface lets you complete the jump. It's all quite maddening.

These problems don’t go away when you take the fight online, which would already be unfortunate if the multiplayer didn’t have serious issues of its own. The multiplayer modes are promising, and have some choice options other than simple deathmatch or team deathmatch, but lobbies to be found are almost an extinct species themselves with less than ten showing up at any given time. The game relies completely on matchmaking and did not launch with any dedicated server support, leaving multiplayer aficionados at the mercy of finding a lobby host who has a decent connection with the proper ports forwarded, and given that the host is randomized the prospect is fairly grim. Once you’ve slugged it out with the matchmaking gods and actually get into a round the multiplayer is fairly fun, and though the melee kills leave you wide open to get similarly killed by anyone nearby it can be fun to gun down an agile Xenomorph as a Marine or take down a Predator with a sneaky ambush.

Before its release this new Aliens vs Predator was touted as a sequel that fans of the much-loved original would enjoy. However, with as many flaws as it has the decade-old classic outclasses it in more ways than it should. The single player starts off with great atmosphere but it quickly falls flat and the multiplayer, as entertaining as it can be at times, simply isn’t worth the headache that one must face down to actually engage in some action. The game has cutting edge visuals and Hollywood-level production values, but the gameplay isn’t anywhere near as powerful or compelling as you would think the franchise would allow for. A real shame.