History YMMV / AliensColonialMarines

* ContestedSequel: Despite the fact that the game is reportedly considered as canon by 20th Century Fox, fans rejected it for being slow, buggy and nowhere near the concept it was made out to be in early previews and demos. After all that's said and done, and the initial hatred died down, as well the highly received DLC and patches, the game still won its own fanbase.

* WinBackTheCrowd: After the backlash for the main game, Gearbox tried to win players back through the subsequent DLC's. Whether they succeeded or failed is still up for debate.

** In addition, the scandal around ACM would forever tarnish Gearbox and Randy Pritchford's reputations, which most certainly played a part in the poor performance of their next major game, ''{{VideoGame/Battleborn}}''.

* CompleteMonster: Mr. Weyland. He makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't care about anything but acquiring the Xenomorphs for his own aims. He considers Ripley's sacrifice selfish, the destruction of the Legato inconvenient. He makes it perfectly clear that he's willing to sacrifice everyone and everything he can in order to obtain and develop the Xenomorphs as weapons.

* NeverLiveItDown: People are already using the NeverTrustATrailer mentality that this game brought about for the game's pseudo-sequel, ''Alien: Isolation'' - even though ''Isolation'' actually had a playable demo and is being made by a different studio. Likewise, criticism of Gearbox exploded after this game's release. Recall that ACM has worse reviews than ''Duke Nukem Forever.''

* TheyJustDidntCare:
** Regardless of whether you think it's Sega's, Gearbox's, or Timegate's fault ACM turned out so disappointing, it's quite obvious none of them put in the effort on this game that they indicated in previews.
** A recent notion as of late is that the developers seemingly spent more time cramming as many continuity nods and Easter eggs as they could into the game, instead of focusing on the story and graphics (and some of those Easter eggs had low-quality animation to boot). Notably, the discovery of an Easter Egg on the "Nostromo" level from the Movie Map Pack DLC (and the knowledge that an entire team spent time animating and programming Jones the cat, who appears for all of a split-second in the level) led to people asking why they couldn't have devoted their team to fixing lingering plot problems instead.

* CriticProof: In spite of the largely negative response to the game, the title was still the 26th best-selling video game of 2013.

* NightmareRetardant: Due to ArtificialStupidity, the xenomorphs aren't nearly as threatening as they were in the films.

* ContestedSequel: Despite the fact that the game is reportedly considered as canon by 20th Century Fox, fans rejected it for being slow, buggy and nowhere near the concept it was made out to be in early previews and demos. After all that's said and done, and the initial hatred died down, as well the highly received DLC and patches, the game still won it's own fanbase.

* NeverLiveItDown: People are already using the NeverTrustATrailer mentality that this game brought about for the game's pseudo-sequel, ''Alien: Isolation'' - even though ''Isolation'' actually had a playable demo and is being made by a different studio.

* ContestedSequel: Despite the fact that the game is reportedly considered as canon by 20th Century Fox, fans rejected it for being slow, buggy and nowhere near the concept it was made out to be in early previews and demos.

** ''Stasis Interrupted'' attempts to explain [[spoiler:Hicks' rescue]], but the incident makes even [[VoodooShark less sense than before]]. [[spoiler:Somehow, the Queen laid a facehugger egg in the cryopod chamber room, which is not only not big enough for her to fit into, but is several rooms over from the cargo bay. A colonist from the Legato just happens to take Hicks' place (who is now wearing different clothing). The evacuation order for the Sulaco is now not only caused by a fire in the cryopod compartment, but a firefight between Stone/Turk and Weyland-Yutani PMC's that nearly kills a facehugged Ripley]].

* FridgeLogic: How are Boilers supposed to be blind when Xenomorphs don't even have normal eyes anyway?

** The notion that the Boilers are blind. Xenomorphs don't have eyes in the first place.

* {{Sequelitis}}: ''Colonial Marines'' received generally lower scores on average than the ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' series of games (including the 2010 installment).

** VoodooShark: The explanation (what little we get) makes even less sense than the event itself does.

* FridgeBrilliance: At one point in your quest, you find an ApocalypticLog that covers a Weyland-Yutani scientist who was implanted with a xenomorph embryo; they tried to surgically extract it so he could survive, but the chestburster killed him in some fashion. This, then, explains quite nicely why "abduct random schmoes and let them die to be chestburster hosts" is standard operating procedure in the ExpandedUniverse, when one would think it would be cheaper to simply surgically extract the larval xenomorphs ''before'' they eat their way out -- that way, one can keep reusing the same host. Clearly, extracting a chestburster surgically, as was done to Ripley in ''Film/AlienResurrection'', is a very delicate and expensive procedure that is inherently unreliable. Ultimately, it really ''is'' cheaper to just keep getting replacement hosts.

** The ''Stasis Interrupted'' DLC received a lot of praise for not only clearing up a lot of lingering plot issues with the main game, but also ratcheting up the tension and making the gameplay much tougher. It even had people who were deadset against the game from the beginning praising it for being a step in the right direction.

* TheyWaistedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: One of the main criticisms of the game, the titular aliens are only the main enemies for a small portion of the game, and most of it is spent fighting other marines.

* NeverLiveItDown: Needless to say, any goodwill that Gearbox received from ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' instantly evaporated with this game's release, to the point where anything the company announces now being met with disdain, with people pointing to ''Colonial Marines'' as reason enough.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In chapter 7 as you are fighting your way up a cliffside path, suddenly a giant donut rolls down towards you and then falls into the ravine below. Your AI partners do not comment on this. No, there is no donut shop up the path which is missing its sign.