Okay I had a whole thing typed out on Aliens: Colonial Marines that seems to have gotten eaten, so don't be surprised if this shows up twice.

It's a little bit damning of the state of action games that an actual Aliens game seems to be following the space marine motif and playing it straight, because the original movie did the very opposite of that.

I read an article on The Escapist a while back pointing out how all these space marine games that borrow from Aliens completely miss the point of how that movie depicted space marines. In the movie they are depicted as simple-minded and somewhat childish. They think of themselves as badasses who can solve their problems with guns and get immediately thrown out of their element.

Space marine games have mostly put you in the role of those guys and not only that, but glorified them, putting players in that simple world that the original inspiration was trying to put down. The Escapist article pointed out how all those games missed one key element of Aliens: the main character who actually saved the day. She was female, not a space marine, and if anything a motherly figure. How many Ellen Ripleys have you seen in action games these days?