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Updating my review now that I've had more experience with the game...

Overall, solid Aliens game.
If you enjoy Aliens, and enjoy an action-oriented approach to the franchise, you'll have fun.
Is it a masterpiece, like Alien: Isolation? No. But it's solid. This isn't a jankfest like Colonial Marines, though it does have some issues.

It respects the franchise lore and integrates it better than most other takes on the series. The core gameplay loop is solid, and the horde shooter gameplay is a lot of fun. There is so much potential to AFE.

AFE scratches the right itch with respect to Aliens there; you kill bugs, lots of bugs! With friends! The game looks and sounds right. (Where it doesn't is minor nitpicks that aren't really worth going into, and may be subjective.)

Digging more into the details here though:

Atmospheric Preferences:
Heathbars, damage floaters, enemy highlighting(only available at lower difficulties) and kill markers can all be turned on and off in the options menu, so you can go all-in on the arcade feel if you want, or get more classic/realistic(such as it is) tense Aliens expereince by turning off all the HUD extras and confirming targets are dead yourself before moving on.

Difficulty Levels:
AFE has too many difficulty levels. The lower difficulties are principally distinguished by low damage (or a complete lack) of friendly fire, low damage from enemies, and low HP on enemies.

Casual is a joke, and you can basically AFK while playing alone and beat the game on that difficulty with the two friendly bots, Alpha and Beta, killing everything for you.

Standard isn't quite as bad as Casual, but ehhh....

Intense generally feels right in terms of how much health enemies have, but things don't really do enough damage or feel threatening once you're experienced with the game. Early on, it's a challenge though.

Completing the game on Intense also unlocks two additional difficulty levels:

Extreme gives more damage output to enemies, boosts enemy health, and increases the damage friendly fire does. Enemies start to become fairly bulletspongey at this level, which doesn't feel very good, but does offer "new gameplay" in the sense that you're more forced into playing quite defensively, and AFE takes a bit of a tower defense tone to its gameplay.

Insane is essentially Extreme, with even more damage output to enemies, way more health for enemies, and some enemies become able to instant-kill you. It's quite unforgiving of mistakes.

On higher difficulty levels, the health of enemies gets very bulletspongey, which works for the stronger enemies, but the weaker ones are also bulletspongey.

Overall, I wish there was a difficulty with Intense levels of health for enemies(other than the stronger ones), Insane most everything else, and more enemies. I wish enemies were more numerous and more lethal, instead of going the bulletsponge route.

AI:
Enemy AI generally behaves well. It will get stuck on occasion, but it's rare. Aliens aren't very stealthy in AFE, tending instead to charge at you, so it's definitely more of an arcadey horde shooter than not. Spawnpoints are in predictable(once you're familiar with the game and know them) places, and tend not to vary on replay. Experienced players are generally able to tell what is going to happen next. Xenos will run on all surfaces, walls and ceilings included.

Friendly AI, in the form of the friendly androids Alpha and Beta, is hmm...not good. It's serviceable at lower difficulties, but the bots spend too much time staring at the player instead of helping against enemies. The friendly AI will fight and cover you, as well as revive you. Human players are of course better, but the AI are viable at lower difficulties. They do decent damage and don't friendly fire the player.
There is one escort NPC, who has a really bad habit of charging into battle or getting in the way instead of staying behind the player. That NPC can be managed with care, but is pretty unanimously considered annoying.

Gameplay:
AFE has an excellent core gameplay loop, and it's a lot of fun to use most of the guns and movement. Levels are lacking in replayability once you learn them, because they're not procedural or randomized enough, though enemy spawns do change a bit from play to play, and some maps have alternate paths that open or close, but this is very minor. Most abilities and weapons in the game feel good, though a couple are junk and will hopefully be patched.

Classes:
Gunner - Your generic soldier sort, that can dish out a lot of damage.

Demolisher - A heavy weapons sort, generally geared for crowd control and helping to put down stronger enemies while the team focuses them.

Technician - Kind of the engineer class, can do good damage in its own right, but has a turret and various buffs and debuffs on top of that.

Doc - While everyone can heal themselves and each other, Doc has an area-effect healing ability, and some other abilities. Combat medic and debuff specialist is a good way of looking at the class.

Recon - Requires beating the game first to unlock, can give some very useful debuffs to the entire map or a particular enemy, and resupply the team with ammo. Being able to spot all enemies on the map is a useful perk, among others. Makes a good sniper in scenarios where that's useful. (Not a ton.)

Phalanx - A shield class. Really good if you're being shot at. Less so against other attacks, though can block some weaker enemies' attacks. Has a fairly high skill cap, if you put the time in, and can parry attacks from strong enemies.

Players have 2 primary weapons with limited ammo, 1 secondary weapon with infinite (though they have to reload every few shots), two class-specific abilities, consumable items, a melee attack, and a motion sensor always on on the HUD.
There are ammo, health, and item pickups in the maps, among other things.

When you're downed, friendlies can pick each other up again if you're not outright dead. (Bleed out time is dependent upon difficulty and other factors.)

You are able to ping things to indicate something to other players, and point things out. (Extremely useful in a coop game. This should be standard everywhere.)

You can ADS, in third person, as well as side switch with the touch of a button, so you can see around your third person body quickly, if it's in front of what you're trying to shoot at.

There are a lot of accessibility options in the menu, for those who find those helpful.

Various Issues:
A lot of the game's options are not available from the main menu for some inexplicable reason, and you have to start a game to do things like changing your controls. That should be fixed, as it's a bad impression for new players. Once you've started to play it doesn't matter, but it's still initially an annoyance.

I do wish dismemberment was a thing like in the old AvP games, but at least you can take heads off. Having an Alien blown in half crawling towards you trailing its guts behind it because it doesn't have legs anymore is an experience this game lacks.

Conclusion:

I want more of this game. More campaigns. More maps. More content. Take my money. (I don't really care about the cosmetic items. They're nice and all, but whatever.)

There's a nice opportunity here to introduce people to the larger Aliens universe, and I really hope that they take it.

There are other horde shooters that do more innovative gameplay(Deep Rock Galactic, for example, with the mobility options and very procedural maps and digging through walls.), but this is an Aliens game, and feels like it should in that respect. The combat is good, better than most.

The biggest issue this game has is a lack of more content. And it may potentially get some. Hopefully.

Updating my review now that I've had more experience with the game... Overall, solid Aliens game. If you enjoy Aliens, and enjoy an action-oriented approach to the franchise, you'll have fun. Is it a masterpiece, like Alien: Isolation? No. But it's solid. This isn't a jankfest like Colonial Marines, though it does have some issues. It respects the franchise lore and integrates it better than most other takes on the series. The core gameplay loop is solid, and the horde shooter gameplay is a lot of fun. There is [i]so much[/i] potential to AFE. AFE scratches the right itch with respect to Aliens there; you kill bugs, lots of bugs! With friends! The game looks and sounds right. (Where it doesn't is minor nitpicks that aren't really worth going into, and may be subjective.) Digging more into the details here though: [b]Atmospheric Preferences:[/b] Heathbars, damage floaters, enemy highlighting(only available at lower difficulties) and kill markers can all be turned on and off in the options menu, so you can go all-in on the arcade feel if you want, or get more classic/realistic(such as it is) tense Aliens expereince by turning off all the HUD extras and confirming targets are dead yourself before moving on. [b]Difficulty Levels:[/b] AFE has too many difficulty levels. The lower difficulties are principally distinguished by low damage (or a complete lack) of friendly fire, low damage from enemies, and low HP on enemies. Casual is a joke, and you can basically AFK while playing alone and beat the game on that difficulty with the two friendly bots, Alpha and Beta, killing everything for you. Standard isn't quite as bad as Casual, but ehhh.... Intense generally feels right in terms of how much health enemies have, but things don't really do enough damage or feel threatening once you're experienced with the game. Early on, it's a challenge though. Completing the game on Intense also unlocks two additional difficulty levels: Extreme gives more damage output to enemies, boosts enemy health, and increases the damage friendly fire does. Enemies start to become fairly bulletspongey at this level, which doesn't feel very good, but does offer "new gameplay" in the sense that you're more forced into playing quite defensively, and AFE takes a bit of a tower defense tone to its gameplay. Insane is essentially Extreme, with even more damage output to enemies, way more health for enemies, and some enemies become able to instant-kill you. It's quite unforgiving of mistakes. On higher difficulty levels, the health of enemies gets very bulletspongey, which works for the stronger enemies, but the weaker ones are also bulletspongey. Overall, I wish there was a difficulty with Intense levels of health for enemies(other than the stronger ones), Insane most everything else, and more enemies. I wish enemies were more numerous and more lethal, instead of going the bulletsponge route. [b]AI:[/b] Enemy AI generally behaves well. It will get stuck on occasion, but it's rare. Aliens aren't very stealthy in AFE, tending instead to charge at you, so it's definitely more of an arcadey horde shooter than not. Spawnpoints are in predictable(once you're familiar with the game and know them) places, and tend not to vary on replay. Experienced players are generally able to tell what is going to happen next. Xenos will run on all surfaces, walls and ceilings included. Friendly AI, in the form of the friendly androids Alpha and Beta, is hmm...not good. It's serviceable at lower difficulties, but the bots spend too much time staring at the player instead of helping against enemies. The friendly AI will fight and cover you, as well as revive you. Human players are of course better, but the AI are viable at lower difficulties. They do decent damage and don't friendly fire the player. There is one escort NPC, who has a really bad habit of charging into battle or getting in the way instead of staying behind the player. That NPC can be managed with care, but is pretty unanimously considered annoying. [b]Gameplay:[/b] AFE has an excellent core gameplay loop, and it's a lot of fun to use most of the guns and movement. Levels are lacking in replayability once you learn them, because they're not procedural or randomized enough, though enemy spawns do change a bit from play to play, and some maps have alternate paths that open or close, but this is very minor. Most abilities and weapons in the game feel good, though a couple are junk and will hopefully be patched. [b]Classes:[/b] Gunner - Your generic soldier sort, that can dish out a lot of damage. Demolisher - A heavy weapons sort, generally geared for crowd control and helping to put down stronger enemies while the team focuses them. Technician - Kind of the engineer class, can do good damage in its own right, but has a turret and various buffs and debuffs on top of that. Doc - While everyone can heal themselves and each other, Doc has an area-effect healing ability, and some other abilities. Combat medic and debuff specialist is a good way of looking at the class. Recon - Requires beating the game first to unlock, can give some very useful debuffs to the entire map or a particular enemy, and resupply the team with ammo. Being able to spot all enemies on the map is a useful perk, among others. Makes a good sniper in scenarios where that's useful. (Not a ton.) Phalanx - A shield class. Really good if you're being shot at. Less so against other attacks, though can block some weaker enemies' attacks. Has a fairly high skill cap, if you put the time in, and can parry attacks from strong enemies. Players have 2 primary weapons with limited ammo, 1 secondary weapon with infinite (though they have to reload every few shots), two class-specific abilities, consumable items, a melee attack, and a motion sensor always on on the HUD. There are ammo, health, and item pickups in the maps, among other things. When you're downed, friendlies can pick each other up again if you're not outright dead. (Bleed out time is dependent upon difficulty and other factors.) You are able to ping things to indicate something to other players, and point things out. (Extremely useful in a coop game. This should be standard everywhere.) You can ADS, in third person, as well as side switch with the touch of a button, so you can see around your third person body quickly, if it's in front of what you're trying to shoot at. There are a lot of accessibility options in the menu, for those who find those helpful. [b]Various Issues:[/b] A lot of the game's options are not available from the main menu for some inexplicable reason, and you have to start a game to do things like changing your controls. That should be fixed, as it's a bad impression for new players. Once you've started to play it doesn't matter, but it's still initially an annoyance. I do wish dismemberment was a thing like in the old AvP games, but at least you can take heads off. Having an Alien blown in half crawling towards you trailing its guts behind it because it doesn't have legs anymore is an experience this game lacks. [b]Conclusion:[/b] I want more of this game. More campaigns. More maps. More content. Take my money. (I don't really care about the cosmetic items. They're nice and all, but whatever.) There's a nice opportunity here to introduce people to the larger Aliens universe, and I really hope that they take it. There are other horde shooters that do more innovative gameplay(Deep Rock Galactic, for example, with the mobility options and very procedural maps and digging through walls.), but this is an Aliens game, and feels like it should in that respect. The combat is good, better than most. The biggest issue this game has is a lack of [i]more[/i] content. And it may potentially get some. Hopefully.