that it would feature three character classes, and "plenty of loot and a ton of weapon customization". Details about enemies were also posted. The same day, Housemarque released a two-and-a-half-minute pre-alpha gameplay video demonstrating the cooperative gameplay feature. In early 2016, Alienation was showcased at Sony's PlayStation Digital Showcase. Sony announced that Alienation would be released sometime in 2015. The game was later delayed until March 2, 2016, and further pushed back to March 23. Another delay postponed its release until April 26, when it was part of Sony's PlayStation Store Launch Party 2016 promotion: six games released over a seven-week period. After release Since Alienation release, Housemarque has updated and added downloadable content (DLC) to the game. Ranked leagues and a local co-op mode were introduced in early July 2016. Other customization options, including bullet colors, were added. Two new difficulty levels (master and expert) and new "hero levels" were also added. On July 5, a season pass and the first DLC (the Survivor's Pack) were introduced, along with a mention of upcoming DLC titled the Conqueror's Pack. On August 23, Housemarque introduced three new DLC: the Weapons Pack, the Armor Paint Pack and the Veteran Heroes pack, all of which (with the Survivor's Pack and the Conqueror's Pack) were included in the season pass. Weekly missions were introduced to give players an additional challenge, with another difficulty level also added. Reception Alienation was met with positive reviews from video-game critics upon release. It received a score of 79 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Many reviewers praised the game's twin-stick mechanics, with Jordan Devore of the video-game blog Destructoid calling it "one of the best-feeling twin-stick shooters" he had ever played. Matt Miller wrote for the video-game magazine Game Informer that in multiplayer mode, Alienation had some of the best twin-stick shooting gameplay available. According to Ben Tyrer of GamesRadar, although the game's maps might not be memorable, its twin-stick shooting mechanics and design were. Its cooperative gameplay was preferred by critics over single-player mode, but critics were confused by the game's lack of local co-op. On GameSpot, a video-game news website, Jason D'Aprile praised Alienation cooperative gameplay but was frustrated by the lack of a local mode, though he said that "with a full troop online" the game was "easily one of the best all-out action multiplayer games in recent