All three campaigns can be jumped in between, with the game even offering you at certain points to switch characters. It helps break things up, though, any of the campaigns can almost be finished in a single sitting. On top of these is a versus multiplayer game with various modes of play. I'll be honest, I played only a handful of deathmatch maps and just couldn't get into it. The match making was incredibly slow and the players controlling Aliens seemed to dominate every match I was in. This is when I finally moved onto the game's co-op mode.
Survivor, as it's called in the game, has four Marine players against endless waves of Aliens, and it's exactly what you expect. Much like the beginning of the Marine campaign, tight dark corridors fill the two maps included with the standard edition of the game. The other two are available if you got the special edition, or fork over some hard earned cash. The interest aspect to these maps is that some will open up, so as you get further into the waves of aliens, more areas unlock similar to Call of Duty: World at War's zombie mode. There's plenty of weapons and ammo to be found, but you'll want to communicate with your team to decide who's the heavy gunner and who has the flame thrower. Then comes the problem of team damage, which in the tight areas, is almost a given. The problem is compounded by the fact you can't revive your fallen comrades, but instead, must watch the chaos play out from video feed style cameras after dieing. Despite these problems it was easy for me to blow an hour just playing a single map with a group of people, and these people weren't easy to come by. Very rarely did I see more than 1 server of co-op going on at any time.
When it all comes down to it, I think Aliens vs Predator is a game that sounded better on paper than it did in execution. It simply tries to do too much, and not do anything well. Three campaigns, three different play styles, multiplayer, and co-op are all packed into a full retail package. It sounds like a deal, but I think I would have much preferred something like this in episodic form. The campaigns are fun, but short, the multiplayer isn't satisfying, and the co-op - while intense and replayable - could have been so much more. Game over man, game over.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: AvP features a survival mode with Marines vs. waves of Aliens.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.