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2* AccidentalAesop:
3** If there’s ever a public health crisis, the authorities have an obligation to tell those affected the whole story. It’s strongly implied, and directly stated in-game by some characters, that the situation would never have gotten as bad as it did if Waits didn’t insist on keeping quiet.
4** Considering how many times Amanda’s progress is stalled due to a non-functioning component, there’s an argument to be made about the importance of preventative maintenance.
5* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
6** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpE47j1D-HU Transit Delay]]". Not only is it a tense and pulse-pounding complement to your first encounter with the Xenomorph, it's also a reworked version of the trailer music for the original film, complete with the haunting "siren" sound effect buried in the mix.
7** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSZPxHppXBE Escape From Habitation Deck]]" is often lauded as the best track of the soundtrack, and for a good reason. It's tense and thrilling, and it matches perfectly the nerve-wracking level it accompanies.
8** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m7NFpr0TC4 Encounters]]" is a hauntingly-beautiful piece of music that is eerie, yet peaceful at the same time. It perfectly captures the atmosphere of hopelessness one feels when they're on Sevastopol, and it can even be heard as the station is gradually falling apart.
9* BestLevelEver: Arguably one of the later levels, [[spoiler: the hive. After several levels of the game basically being "Android: Isolation", Amanda has to fight her way through an Alien hive, which has multiple Aliens ''and'' facehuggers.]] It almost feels like the whole game was building up to this one area.
10* BeamMeUpScotty: At no point in the game is the page quote ever spoke by Samuels. His real line is "Maybe this will provide some closure for you", not "we get to shut the book Ripley"
11* BreatherLevel:
12** [[spoiler:Marlow's playable flashback to the ''Anesidora'' crew's discovery of the derelict ship on LV-426]] is nothing but [[ContinuityCavalcade exploration and references to the first film]], and though [[ThatOneLevel notoriously slow and awkwardly-paced]], is generally a welcome break from the tense, cat-and-mouse stealth action of the rest of the game.
13** The levels after the Gemini Lab. You can run around all you want and you don't have to worry about the xenomorph jumping down to kill you. Also helping is that the game finally allows you to use all the resources you've been saving, making exploring more rewarding, and generally allowing the player to take a breath for a while. [[spoiler:For the time being.]]
14** [[spoiler:The trek through Marlow's ship, the ''Anesidora'', is a final refreshing change of pace before the game throws you into the thrilling finale, since its basically a straight line to him with almost no enemies sans a lone Facehugger, and only a few puzzles to deal with. Even the subsequent escape sequence isn't particularly difficult.]]
15* BrokenBase
16** The decision to make the Xenomorph functionally invincible. Some have criticized and dismissed this issue as a lazy design that cheapens the players' interaction with the Xenomorph since getting caught by it means instant death until you get the Flamethrower later on to make it temporarily back off. On the other hand, some argue that [[AdaptationalBadass the break from canon]] was a genre-bending compromise intended to satisfy both the niche "hide from the enemy" gameplay crowd and the more mainstream shooter gameplay crowd; including weapons while also making the Alien invincible to them was done with the intention of balancing the two approaches.
17** The length. Although some reviewers and players expressed frustration that the game didn't end sooner than it did, others have cited the SceneryPorn [=EVA=] sequences and the nail-biting escape from the Habitation Deck as highlights of the game. It all comes down to the discussion of how long a video game should be length wise, since to some, the early parts of the game were better and think the rest of the game after [[spoiler: the first Alien is taken out]] is just {{Padding}}, while others will argue that the game truly ramps up even more after said point.
18* CatharsisFactor:
19** Using the stun rod or an EMP mine on a Working Joe then grabbing the maintenance jack to inflict a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. There's an achievement that can be unlocked on your first Joe kill, and another achievement for killing a Joe using nothing else but the maintenance jack.
20** Getting the flamethrower or crafting the Molotov and using them for the first time against the Xenomorph to drive it off. There's also an achievement for each of the two flammable weapons.
21** Watching Samuels himself deliver a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on a Working Joe.
22* CultClassic: Although ''Alien: Isolation''’s sales were underwhelming, the game is still held up as one of the best horror games to have ever been released and ''the'' best ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' game ever made. Even nearly a decade later, the graphics, set design and atmosphere puts most triple A video games released in the 2020s to shame. Fans praised the game for offering a good mixture of the survival-horror genre and the 'walking simulator' horror genre, which prevents the game from becoming dull, alongside the absolutely brilliant AI from the Xenomorph. To this day, people still made walkthroughs, gameplay analysis and video essays on how the Xeno's AI works despite being released all the way back in 2014. For a single-player horror game that released only a few [=DLCs=], ''this is impressive''.
23* DemonicSpiders: The Working Joes. They can take almost all six rounds from the revolver to the [[CranialProcessingUnit head]] (their only vulnerable spot) which early in the game is likely to be the majority of your ammo. They block melee strikes if they can see them coming, so that's not an option. They're annoyingly quiet, so if you don't keep an eye on your motion tracker you can run right over one before you realize it. Finally, if they do see you, they are much more persistent in tracking you than humans, and much better at it. The only thing in your favor is they're [[MightyGlacier incredibly slow]] so you can easily outrun (or even out''walk'' them) as long as they don't manage to corner you. Near the end of the game, an even more annoying version shows up wearing an environmental suit, which renders them immune to EMP mines and the stun baton, two of the four weapons which are guaranteed to stop the normal ones. And the first time you meet said elite variants, your weapons have been taken away, so you're unarmed besides whatever Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs you've managed to squirrel away.
24* DisappointingLastLevel: Or, rather, "Disappointing Last Chapters". From approximately Chapter 14, which is considered a scary, awesome level onwards, the game suddenly begins to [[{{Filler}} pad itself to ludicrous degrees]], culminating in several very difficult and frustrating encounters with the Xenomorph. The game could easily end several times but continuously drags itself along, placing locked doors, powered down generators and a pissed off Xenomorph in your way. The game also moves its goalposts frequently in these segments, which only adds to the frustration. Even when you reach the final chapter of the game, which is ostensibly a two-story room with some vents in the floor, it manages to drag it out to almost an ''hour total in just that chapter alone.'' [[spoiler: The ending is also extremely frustrating in and of itself, turning the game into one long 15 hour ShaggyDogStory.]] Many critics complained about this insane padding, claiming that the game could have easily been toned down from a 15 to 20 hour game to a 12 or 14 hour one, and nothing of any value would be missed.
25** In a more specific example, the game essentially ends with a level of slowly walking back and forth with few hazards, far cry from the cat-and-mouse strategy of the rest of the game and a huge disappointment for players hoping for a bombastic final chapter worthy of the horrors of the game thus far.
26* EndingFatigue: There are several points where the game could have naturally ended ([[spoiler:the destruction of the hive underneath the reactor core]] or [[spoiler:Amanda confronting Marlow on the ''Anesidora'' and finding her mother's last transmission]]), but it continues past this, to the point of filler. Many critic reviews pointed out that the game could have easily been cut down to a more manageable length. To put this in perspective, ''Isolation'' is 18 chapters long, with a short 19th chapter for the epilogue. Each chapter takes roughly one hour to complete. Both of the above moments happen at around Chapter 14 or 15. This means that there are about 5 chapters left until the ending from the point where the fatigue sets in, roughly translating to ''5 hours'' of padding until the ending.
27* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Working Joes were a huge hit with the fanbase, thanks to their "[[UncannyValley unnecessarily terrifying robot]]" schtick and [[DissonantSerenity disturbingly calm]] one-liners being alternatively [[CreepyMonotone terrifying]] and [[BlackComedy hilarious.]] Some fans have even called them scarier than the alien. It says quite a bit that for the longest time, the page image for this game's [[NightmareFuel/AlienIsolation Nightmare Fuel]] page was a picture of a Working Joe and not, you know, ''the xenomorph.''
28* EvilIsCool: The Alien, easily. It's simultaneously frightening and fascinating, due to the free-roaming A.I., [[ArtificialBrilliance adaptable intelligence]], and unpredictable behavior. It causes many intense moments, initiates cat and mouse duels with the player, and as many would argue, restored true fear back into the Xenomorph. Many players will proclaim it as the best part of the game by far.
29* FoeYayShipping: There’s a small fanbase for Amanda Ripley and the xenomorph. The fact that it develops a specific interest in hunting down Ripley probably contributes to the interest.
30* GeniusBonus:
31** Apollo Korzeniowski was the father of "Joe" Conrad, author of ''Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard''.
32** An EasterEgg on a whiteboard inside the ''Project [=KG348=]'' laboratory contains [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling%27s_approximation Stirling's Approximation]].
33* GoddamnedBats:
34** [[spoiler:Facehuggers]] in the late game. They only take a single burst of flame to kill, but they hide under boxes perfectly still so you don't know they're there, only attack when you're very close, kill you instantly if they connect, and on death emit a squeal which gets the Alien's attention. What's even worse is that they can sometimes come after you while you're in a crawlspace where melee weapons can't be used, forcing you to waste precious ammo.
35** Hostile humans become this as the game goes on. Unlike the Alien or Working Joes that have either a unique AI that the player can work around, or have a purposely limited AI to make them fair, enemy humans tend to be unpredictable in a bad way. They tend to always come in groups, always have guns, and typically stay in one place in a given area, cutting off access to the area if you aren't able to sneak past or kill them. Plus their attacks are just behind the Alien in damage, as even at full HP two shoots from a gun will kill you. As a result, it's often at times better to have the unpredictable Alien come in and kill them, simply because at least the game has systems in place for balancing the Alien, unlike humans.
36* GoodBadBugs: Since [=NPCs=] tend to respawn whenever you load a save file, there are interesting cases when you just happen to find an NPC in a weird idle state, especially if they spawn near you and the save station. This can happen to the last save station when you are with Axel, as he can spawn laying down on the floor, then immediately standing up in a split-second.
37* HePannedItNowHeSucks: To put it mildly, fans of this game were not amused by IGN reviewer Ryan [=McCaffrey's=] extremely critical review, which gave it a score of 5.9. It didn't help that he was most critical of things that many fans saw as positives, like the game's [[NintendoHard challenging difficulty level]], the alien's sophisticated and unpredictable ArtificialIntelligence, and the prominent role of the "Working Joe" androids (whom many fans [[EnsembleDarkhorse loved almost as much as the alien]]).
38* HesJustHiding: There are quite a few fans who believe it possible that [[spoiler:Samuels may have a chance at survival - given that he's a synthetic, he could potentially be fixed by other survivors on the station.]] Indeed, there are several [[FixFic fanfics featuring this as a premise]].
39* InferredHolocaust: In the level [[spoiler: The Hive, you can hear wailing in the distance, undoubtedly people cocooned in walls. When you overload the reactor, it's very likely that they all died. To be fair, most of them were probably impregnated anyway, [[MercyKill so you may well have been doing them a favor]].]]
40* MemeticMutation: The Working Joes' lines are memes in the fandom:
41** "[[CreepyMonotone You always know a Working Joe]]."
42** "[[CaptainObvious You're becoming hysterical]]."
43* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound:
44** The repetitive "Bleep, bleep, bleep" of the consoles representing a JustifiedSavePoint can be a huge relief for a player to hear, especially after getting through a particularly tense section.
45*** Can be a bit of a mean-spirited tease or HopeSpot though, as nothing is stopping enemies from approaching you when you try to save your game. If it's the alien, nothing is more infuriating than getting impaled from behind while waiting for the lights on the save point to count down.
46** The specific noisy clanks that mean the Xenomorph has crawled back into the vents, giving you slightly more freedom on the floors for the time being.
47* {{Narm}}:
48** While most of the original film's cast sort-of sound like they did forty years ago, Creator/HarryDeanStanton's voice is so old and weathered that a light breeze could drown him out. His hoarse rasp sounds nothing like Brett in the original film, and Stanton passed away shortly after the game came out, implying he was on death's door while recording his lines. It should be a fitting tribute, but it ends up an exercise in absurdity.
49** At the very end of the game, as you're about to release the docking clamps on the ''Torrens'', you see the Xenomorph calmly observing you from a support beam about twenty feet away. It should be creepy, but its idle animation has it scurrying from side-to-side like it's doing a jig.
50** While usually terrifying, the length of time a Xenomorph can spend sniffing around your hiding spot and not finding you (i.e. in a locker, under a table, etc.) can make you wonder if this particular specimen has some version of OCD, especially if it returns to the same spot that it had already investigated a while ago.
51** While it makes sense after the breakdown of law and order - and certainly is consistent with the HumansAreBastards theme of the ''Alien'' franchise - the sheer hostility most [[NonPlayerCharacter NPCs]] have towards the player borders on StupidEvil. This goes further on the final few chapters when Seegson Security will shoot at you while [[spoiler: ''the station is now crawling with Xenomorphs and facehuggers.'']] In general, it is such an obvious plot device to add an additional enemy type besides the androids and aliens that it breaks suspension of disbelief.
52** There's a segment in the "Severance" part of the Corporate Lockdown DLC where the Xenomorph [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo7Lq4C3KUM leaves you alone]] because you crawl through a hole it can't fit into...a barricade of [[InsurmountableWaistHighFence haphazardly stacked suitcases at slightly above chest height.]] It being a barricade rather than a solid wall is perhaps necessary for the purposes of the player being able to see over it from both sides (especially since if you crawl through it on one side [[HopeSpot to your apparent safety]] [[SchmuckBait the alien will immediately ambush you on the other]]) but it's a bit of a headscratcher how ''this'' was the best design solution from a developer standpoint, rather than say, ''a glass window.''
53* NoDeathRun: The game requires you to do this in order to get "The One" achievement, though technically you ''can'' die and still get the Achievement, but at the cost of having to [[SaveScumming restart from the most recent mission save.]]
54* SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames: ''Isolation'' is near-universally agreed to be an excellent game, and some fans even hold it up as the best SurvivalHorror game of all time.
55* OneTruePairing: Quite a few fans ship Amanda Ripley with Samuels, and even come up with fanfics where Samuels survives Sevastopol and the two of them just return to Earth to live a happy, Xenomorph-free life. It also helps that Samuels and Amanda share quite a few profound interactions, and Samuels does show genuine concern for her in the game.
56* ParanoiaFuel:
57** Deliberately invoked. Once the Xenomorph gets into the picture, nowhere is safe and it could be ''anywhere''.
58** The damn motion activated doors and vents will make you jump a few times.
59* PlayerPunch: [[spoiler:Samuels' death]] in Chapter 12. The merciless HopeSpot beforehand doesn't help.
60* PolishedPort: Two incredible ports, in fact.
61** The PC port looks absolutely incredible and runs fantastic- the game is so well optimized that the Steam versions lists a 2GB GPU in it's recommended settings, when the average GPU of the time had upwards of 4GB of VRAM.
62** The Nintendo Switch version is as much of a technical achievement as the ports of VideoGame/Doom2016 and VideoGame/DoomEternal were. The game looks and runs fantastically, and it even has a better overall picture quality than the [=PS4=] version. Not bad at all!
63* RootingForTheEmpire: Marlow's plan [[spoiler: to blow up Sevastopol makes perfect sense. At this point, the entire station is infested and all the humans still alive, save Ricardo, are hostile to the point of shooting on sight (case in point: the first people Ripley encounters when she gets back are rogue security forces that want to kill her). The player would be forgiven for asking Marlow to hold off for a few minutes, grabbing Ricardo and Taylor, calling the ''Torrens'' for an evac and then telling Marlow to have his fun. The fact that the game ends with everyone dead except for Ripley only further proves his point.]]
64* ScrappyMechanic: The lack of a frequent autosave feature. While the game does autosave, they're usually only after completing either chapters, major events, or during moments where there are absolutely no ways to manually save. Instead players have to rely on manual saves, which takes several seconds to complete and leaves you at the mercy of nearby enemies. This was done to add [[JustifiedSavePoint realism]] and tension to the game, but many players found this annoying as there are often [[CheckpointStarvation long stretches of time between each save point]]. This is ''especially'' bad during the more difficult levels of the game, and levels with unskippable cutscenes.
65* ScrappyWeapon: While usually the game subverts this, in that a number of the weapons seem useless when you first get them but then have a much clearer and better use later, the pipe bomb plays this completely straight. While it's definitely the most damaging weapon in the game, it only startles the Xenomorph and has a rather costly crafting recipe. The much quieter EMP and Molotovs are usually better at taking out groups of androids and humans respectively. It's only superior to those two against the hazmat Working Joes (which have both EMP and fire resistance), but in that situation the revolver, shot gun, and bolt launcher work just as well and don't have the risk of blowing yourself up. [[GracefulInTheirElement There is one area in the game where you don't have the above three and don't have to worry about alerting the alien where the pipe bomb becomes effective]], but [[CripplingOverspecialization outside that one small part the only reason to craft it is to make room for more of its components]].
66* ShockingMoments: [[spoiler:Once you discover the hive full of Xenomorphs in the reactor, [[BringMyBrownPants the shit-spewing, nerve wrecking factor]] will more than likely go straight through the roof.]]
67* SpecialEffectFailure:
68** The game uses occlusion/culling to remove sections of the map the player can't see, saving on rendering time. Occasionally--''especially'' on previous-generation consoles, which can barely run the game--the occlusion bugs out and fails to load environment assets. Nothing breaks the willing suspension of disbelief like opening a vent on the Nostromo and seeing nothing but the skybox beyond, or walking past hovering plastic wrap in Gemini Labs because the game would not load the machinery its supposed to be covering.
69** When you first launch a shuttlecraft, the model of the otherwise elaborately detailed Sevastopol turns into a painfully obvious low-poly model that looks more at home on a Sega Dreamcast title than a modern cutting edge title.
70** ''The Digital Series'', which combines rendered cutscenes with gameplay and transfers first-person dialogue scenes with third-person dialogue scenes, has scenes that fall into this with the newly-rendered scenes. Since there weren't as many resources put into the last part, there are scenes where [[DullSurprise the cast express emotional dialogue with oddly blank expressions]] or the MouthFlaps go out-of-sync and unintentionally make the scenes suffer from a HongKongDub effect. There are also some shots where it's clear that the camera wasn't quite made to make the jump from a first-person narrative to a third-person one, creating an odd "shutter" effect that the characters move through.
71* ThatOneAchievement:
72** "One Shot", which means you cannot die during one playthrough. It's extremely difficult to pull off due to the game's randomization, but the difficulty is mitigated by a programming oversight; reloading from a '''mission save''' will not trigger the 'player has died' EventFlag.
73** "Mind Your Step" requires you to make it through one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the game (that is, the [[spoiler: [[ThatOneLevel Alien Hive]]]]) without dying.
74** "Mercy or Prudence" requires beating the game without killing any human enemies. This is surprisingly tricky to achieve because even non-trigger-happy gamers will want to get rid of any potentially dangerous humans nearby. [[note]]A loophole around this is to summon the alien and have it kill the humans for you, but it's a risky move since that'll mean having to deal with a faster and unkillable enemy instead.[[/note]] Additionally, some of the weapons that are considered non-lethal, like the Stun Baton, will still count as a kill if you use it on humans. Some gamers would actually recommend playing on ''harder'' difficulties to get this achievement, since that's when you ''really'' don't want to engage in combat.
75* ThatOneAttack:
76** While the Xenomorph is already a one-hit kill enemy, they have one particularly cheap tactic of getting the drop on the player: the ceiling vents. These vents usually have drool coming from them to warn the player, but the player will sometimes be too distracted or running from other enemies to notice it. If the room is dark or fogged up, it's damn near impossible to notice. Sometimes, if the player is really unlucky with the timing, the Xenomorph will just drop from the vent if the player gets too close, giving them no chance to hide.
77** Some unlucky players will encounter a Xenomorph when crawling through a vent. You may as well just embrace death when you see them there since you can't crawl fast enough to get away, and the spaces are too narrow.
78** During [[HarderThanHard Nightmare Mode]], ''any'' time you're caught in a chokehold by a Working Joe. If you're not at full health and don't mash that A/X button fast, you're toast. If you're caught and are unlucky enough to have less than adequate health, ''touch is death''.
79* ThatOneLevel:
80** The Medical Ward, due to a serious DifficultySpike. It's the first zone where the Alien is an active threat all the way through and the Alien itself is far more aggressive than elsewhere in the game (preferring to patrol on the ground instead of through the vents), and you lack most of the tools needed to ward it off if it spots you. The wards are also full of cramped, twisty corridors which can easily bottleneck you into an encounter with the Alien, and objectives are numerous and sometimes vague (at one point you're directed to stare at a whiteboard for several seconds to activate the next objective, with no prompt given). One particular room features a large table in the middle, 2 glass walls and 2 see-through doors at either end. The alien tends to walk into this room and get funneled around the geometry of the table, patrolling back and forth for minutes at a time. Combined with the glass walls, it gets what is essentially a 360 degree view of the surrounding corridors and can be almost impossible to sneak past. It comes as a tremendous relief when [[spoiler:the whole place explodes thanks to Waits' tripwires.]]
81** The Derelict is not so much a difficult level as much as it is tedious, especially if you're trying to breeze through the game for collectibles or a speedrun. Pretty much every other level relies on skippable [=FMV=]s or free-roam conversations the player can rush through to tell the story, but Marlowe's flashback is a lead-paced walking simulator with a bulky and cumbersome suit that drops your mobility to nil and is progress-gated to your slow and awkward A.I. allies.
82** Gemini Labs is this in spades. The Alien, which at this point is already fairly aggressive, goes for broke and makes a beeline for you if you make too much noise. Even though you have the flamethrower, there are more than a few times where the monster will constantly circle around you, forcing you to duck into lockers and cubbyholes. It also doesn't help that this level has security cameras that go off if you trip them (which is easy to do due to the oddly-defined cone of vision) which will summon the Xenomorph instantly. Better be near a locker or under a table, cause if you aren't, then you'll die in seconds. And then the final section of the level is [[spoiler: you and the Alien locked into a small lab, about three rooms big with numerous floor vents and ceiling vents, creating one of if not ''the'' most difficult encounter with the Xeno.]]
83** On [[HarderThanHard Nightmare Mode]], the mission immediately after [[spoiler:the Xenomorph is ejected into space]], where you have to return to Martial Waits bureau while evading a perfect storm of hostile Working Joes and paranoid Sevastopol citizens equipped with shotguns and riot gear, skyrockets into being one of the trickiest parts of the game. Since you'll only have the bare minimum of weapons and supplies at best, and Joes and foot soldiers alike can kill you in seconds if you make any false move, one either has to be extremely good at either having just enough ammo to kill the Joes or, barring that, evading the Joes or being fortunate enough that the Joes show a rare flash of intelligence and [[AlreadyUndoneForYou march ahead and kill the guys blocking your path.]] To say the least, It can really feel like a LuckBasedMission at times.
84** The Apollo Core. In order to enter the area, you need to leave behind your revolver, shotgun, and flamethrower. And to make things even better, the area is crawling with Working Joes wearing hazmat suits who can't be disabled with the stun baton or EMP mines. There are no vents you can use to sneak around them, and their patrol routes seem to be random. Combine these things with the fact that Working Joes make little noise when they move, and you'll often have one or more of them stumbling upon you while you're trying to figure out how to sneak past another one.
85** [[spoiler:Alien Hive. Remember how tough the first Xenomorph was? Imagine a whole nest of them, with ConservationOfNinjitsu subverted like crazy, and Facehuggers every which way. And what's more is that even though you'll have even stronger weapons by this point like the Bolt Gun and Shotgun, the most they can do to the Xenomorphs is ''stun'' them. Even the trusty flamethrower, which the Xenomorph can learn to fear, can only point in one direction at a time, so if more than one of the Xenomorphs flank you in a corridor, you are ''screwed''.]]
86** One of the toughest parts of the game is in Mission 16, where you have to make your way to Ricardo while evading hallways crammed with shotgun-wielding riot guards. While the vents help you bypass some of them, the last stretch forces you to walk right within their line of fire, and any attempt at combat can quickly escalate the situation to being a lost cause, particularly on Hard or Nightmare Mode. Even if you're fortunate enough to have Smoke Bombs or Flashbang Grenades handy (which you probably won't on Nightmare Mode), you have to be ''really'' quick lest you want to get mowed down in seconds by them. To add to the frustration, you have to work your way back the way you came after a bit, and not only will there be still security present, but the Alien comes back, and it creates a potentially frustrating series of events to do so.
87** Chapter 17, the escape from the Habitation Deck. The station is progressively falling out of orbit, with fire and power losses everywhere, your flamethrower is down to fumes, and now that [[spoiler: there are multiple Xenomorphs and Facehuggers loose]] not even running away from danger is guaranteed to save you. As if all that wasn't bad enough, there's one incredibly obnoxious generator outage that requires you to backtrack across incredibly dangerous territory ''twice'', with very few hiding spots to help you avoid being spotted.
88* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Some fans have expressed dissatisfaction with how the game's Xenomorph's design differs from that of the film's, such as it only having two dorsal tubes or possessing digitigrade feet. [[http://calumalexanderwatt.blogspot.com/2014/12/alienisolation-part-2.html According to the concept artist, the latter was to give it the necessary agility]].
89* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
90** [[spoiler:In the nest level, it is possible to encounter to two Xenomorphs at once. Later, after they flee the core, you would think this would mean that you have to deal with multiple alien threats at once all throughout for a maximum suspense. Nope, except for a brief sequence towards the end, it's mostly just one at a time.]]
91** The general consensus is that while the [=DLCs=] are good, they don’t tie enough into the main plot. Linguard and Ransome’s in particular are a wasted opportunity since they witnessed events first hand that Amanda only hears about (like the original chestburster that came from Foster or the general breakdown on the station) and their missions could have been used to show case these events.
92* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler:Samuels]] seems to be the exception to the CorruptCorporateExecutive trope - [[spoiler:he's a helpful android that can deliver a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to a Working Joe, can interface directly with the ship's systems]] and is the only outright good [[spoiler:synthetic]] character in the game. Yet, [[spoiler:he dies midway through the story (in a HeroicSacrifice) while giving Amanda access to APOLLO]].
93* UnintentionallySympathetic: Both Marshal Waits and Marlow are portrayed as the WellIntentionedExtremist but, arguably, have the right idea.
94** Waits [[spoiler: is willing to sacrifice Ripley to rid the station of the alien. The creature already escaped multiple traps and compassion had recently allowed it to escape yet another. It's also important to note he is completely unaware there is more than one xenomorph on board.]]
95** Marlow's [[spoiler: destruction of the space station also prevents the Aliens from escaping into the general public. He's not exactly wrong in saying the few lives aboard the station are not worth allowing those creatures to reach the rest of humanity. In the end, not a single habitant of the station has survived the Alien infestation and only Ripley remains, which just further reinforces Marlow's perspective.]]
96* TheUntwist:
97** It's revealed roughly halfway through the game that [[spoiler:Weyland-Yutani screwed everyone over and is once again trying to acquire the alien]] as everyone expected they would. At this point, it would be more surprising for them to '''not''' be involved in one of these schemes.
98** The reveal of [[spoiler: Samuels]] being a synthetic was this to people familiar with the series, but a surprise to those who weren't.
99** The game continues after Ripley apparently [[spoiler: rids the station of the alien]]. But for horror fans this is very difficult to believe. [[spoiler: At this point most players thought the creature somehow survived or there were more aliens aboard. Sure enough, it's revealed the station is infested with xenomorphs.]]
100* VindicatedByHistory: While it initially had a polarizing (but still quite positive) reception, the game has gotten a much better reception as the years have gone by thanks to its brilliant A.I., production value, and stellar level design with even several sites that initially trashed the [[https://www.gamespot.com/articles/alien-isolation-is-still-an-unmatched-horror-exper/1100-6453861/?ftag=GSS-05-10aab8e&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utm_content=59da609e04d301640daf8921&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter game on release admitting it's one of the best survival horror games ever made.]]
101* WinBackTheCrowd:
102** After the backlash against the previous game, ''VideoGame/AliensColonialMarines'', Creative Assembly said that they hoped this game would restore the prestige to the game franchise. They even made it a point to wait until they had a near-complete build of the game before announcing it, as well as showed off a significant portion to industry journalists well in advance of the release date and had very low-key press releases (and not even bothering to publicize the fact that William Hope [who played Gorman in ''Film/{{Aliens}}''] played a key character in the game). The general critical consensus seems to be that despite pacing issues, significant padding and some A.I. issues on the default difficulty, it's still a solid triple-A release, the alien is genuinely scary, and the game is overall worthy of the ''Alien'' title.
103** Some fans regard the game as the best installment in the franchise since the [[Film/{{Aliens}} second movie]]. A lot of the material since that point hadn't done much necessary world-building (with the exception of ''{{Film/Prometheus}}''). This game gave the players a look at different aspects of the universe with Sevastopol, rather than just giving the aliens a new ability or explaining why a new infestation popped up elsewhere.

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