Product– ALIEN RPG Colonial Marines Operations Manual

System- Alien RPG

Producer– Free League Publishing

Price– $11.99 here  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/356935/alien-rpg-colonial-marines-operations-manual?affiliate_id=658618   

TL; DR-A few issues don’t keep this from being a fun book.  93% 

Basics– Game over man, GAME OVER!  Colonial Marines Operation Manual expands on the world of Aliens, focusing on the military men and women who will defend the frontier from both men and monsters.  This book features a few new careers, talents, and items for the players and for the GM it has a TON of story and a whole campaign.

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a classic example of what’s here is good, but there needs to be more.  There are a TON of ships and tanks, so if you wanted to have more of that in the game, you are going to love this.  But there is not much new for characters to directly build themselves.  What’s here is good however.  The new military careers are fantastic and will make your character feel more like they are more than just generic soldiers.  I would just like more player specific options.  For the GM, there is an impressive amount here to throw around with a guide on how to make a military campaign and a full military campaign in the book!  4.5/5

Theme or Fluff– Want to learn over 200 years of history and culture in a book?  This is that book!  This book goes deep into the lore of the universe, and it’s well done.  You get small glimpses into individual soldiers’ lives and an overview of nearly two centuries of corporate intrigue and international and planetary politics.  This doesn’t even cover all the multitude of new aliens added to the lore or added to this game.  This is a solid story hit.     5/5

Execution– I like what’s here, but don’t completely love it.  The layout is ok, but it’s lots of green boxes with a black background.  There are pictures, but not many when it comes to the aliens.  Humans and weapons yes, which I like, but not many to show the new xenomorphs.  The book does read easily and has hypertext, so I love that.  The campaign is good, but I don’t like the layout as I feel some of the style hides the lead and makes it a bit hard to run on the fly.  But, I do appreciate it.  I’d like the pregens to be separate, but they do exist in the book.  Not as character sheets, but as blocks that you can print out.  It’s good, but I would like a few improvements.    4.5/5

Summary–  If you want to run a military campaign for the Alien RPG, this is the book you need.  Heck, it comes with a military campaign so you don’t event need to do hard work as a GM for the first 8 sessions!  It’s not perfect; I want more player options and some changes to layout and writing.  But these are small complaints compared to the parts of the book that are well done.  93%