Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, a new co-op shooter developed by Cold Iron Studios and published by Daybreak Game Company, has faced a massive wave of criticism from the player community. On Steam, the game's user rating quickly dropped to the "Mostly Negative" category: among the first 150 reviews, only about 33% were positive, and the peak concurrent player count stalled at just 7,808. As of this writing, the game holds only a 51% positive rating on Steam.
The primary cause of player outrage was the aggressive pricing strategy. The standard edition of this shooter was priced at 316 yuan, while the expanded edition cost 412 yuan. Players emphasized that the project was significantly more expensive than similar successful titles like Helldivers 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, yet offered only 5-6 story missions and three "Hive Mode" maps. Many players publicly labeled this new release as an overpriced DLC for the first game, an impression further exacerbated by the multiple paid content packs released on launch day, including Rain's Jackson's Star Pack priced at 63 yuan.
The game's optimization was also poor, leading to a wave of refunds. Players reported frequent micro-stutters during scene transitions, crashes to the desktop when attempting to change graphics settings, and desynchronization between audio and facial animations during cutscenes. Even on high-end systems equipped with flagship graphics cards, frame rates were unstable. Additionally, the lack of support for frame generation technology in 2026 left many players puzzled.
The gameplay changes also failed to convince players: the four-person squad system, customizable "Expert" classes, and the addition of stun batons did not shield the game from criticism of its combat system. Players complained about the complete lack of recoil feedback from weapons, the underwhelming sound effects of the iconic pulse rifle, and issues with enemy AI. Xenomorphs would lose their way at simple obstacles, get stuck in walls, and completely lacked realistic hit physics.
The visual presentation and narrative also received some negative feedback due to stiff character movement animations lacking a sense of weight, low-quality facial animations, and clichéd dialogue. Another major point of contention among Russian players was the complete lack of localization: the game not only lacked Russian voice acting but also had no Russian translations for the interface or subtitles. Furthermore, the co-op mode still does not offer even basic text chat functionality.