One of my top 5 favorite board games. This game is awesome!I should begin by stating that this game is NOT an expansion to the previous Level 7 games. The Level 7 games share a common story line, but that's about it. You don't have to own them to play this game. Omega Protocol is my first Level 7 game. Omega Protocol is stand alone. Also, speaking of expansions, there will be at least 1 (hopefully several) expansions to this game. One set of tiles is specifically stated to be for an expansion.Also, I'm not going to explain how to play the game in my review. Youtube can help with that. :-) Ricky Royal has an excellent play through of the game.The theme, Marines vs Aliens, will not appeal to everyone. It's not a generic topic. And, tactical games don't appeal to everyone either. But, if you like the tactical games with a military theme you will probably love Level 7 - Omega Protocol. If you are familiar with Descent or Descent 2 you can thing of this game as being a Sci-fi version of those games. The game mechanics are similar.This game hits a sweet spot with me given the games's complexity level, theme, game mechanics, game components, and look of the game, because it gets high scores from me on all of those aspects.Game Complexity - All of us, like Goldilocks, want a game that is 'just right', not too simple, not too complex. With any game this aspect involves the rules, how many of them there are, if they make sense, if they are difficult to understand or keep track of, etc. Omega Protocol is just right on these aspects for me. On one end of the spectrum you have very complex rules in games like Warhammer 40K or some military simulation games. The player must have the rule book with them as they play, even if they have been playing the game for years. On the other end of the spectrum you have games that are unrealistic and are mainly based simply on die rolling and require little thinking. Omega Protocol has some complexity, but not a lot. The rulebook is 24 pages long with photos and examples, so there are not a ton of rules. And, the rules are pretty simple, and 'make sense'.Theme - I won't go into this aspect much, because I haven't played the other Level 7 games. I have learned that it has something to do a X-Files kind of situation. There were aliens on Earth, but the gov't kept it a secret. Now something has gone very wrong with that situation. In short, the game deals with a Marine unit combating the aliens. There is a lot of back story, some of which in included in this game.Game Mechanics - This aspect, along with the Game Complexity, is what makes this game so great. There are many games that have one set of miniatures fighting another set of miniatures, where the combat is determined by dice. This game has that too, but takes it to another level. I see 3 simple aspects that do so. 1 - You can customize your individual soldier. There are upgrade cards that cost 1 or 2 points each. You can upgrade each soldier with 6 points of upgrades. An upgrade can be something like Napalm Grenade, Med Kit, Better Armor, Weapon Upgrade, a Skill. There are a lot of these, some specific that can only be used by a certain unit, some generic that any soldier can use. Nothing is better than being able to customize your individual soldier. 2 - There is the game mechanic of Adrenaline, which are basically Action Points. Each Marine uses a certain amount of Adrenaline to complete their turn (move, attack, heal, etc.). At a point in the game the Adrenaline from all of the soldiers is passed to the Overlord for them to use for their units. So, you have a pretty good game balance built in. 3 - The Overlord has a set of specific actions, and cards, they can use for each scenario. So, the Overlord has some flexibility, but it's controlled. The options available to the Overlord, combined with the Adrenaline sharing, prevent one group from being too powerful. Note - there are ways to make a scenario easier, or more difficult, for either the Marines or the Overlord.Game Components - To me the look of a game means a lot when playing it. Especially if the game has miniatures, which Omega Protocol has. This game is great looking. Most of the components are well made, have the correct amount of color, and there are a lot of components. I do have a few issues though. The plastic for the miniatures, especially the aliens, is soft. So, right out of the box some of the figures were badly bent. They were great looking models. And had no flash on them that needed to be trimmed, etc, but they were bent. I had to put them in near boiling water and straighten most of them. They look a lot better now, but would have liked for them to be made of better plastic. Also, I would have liked for the individual Marine attribute boards to have been thicker. The thickness of the room, hallway, and token boards are great. I wish the player boards were made of the same material. Other than those 2 complaints the components were great. Oh yes, and I would have liked a nice tray in the box for the figures, dice, tokens, cardboard layouts. There is no tray at all, just a flimsy cardboard divider that I threw away.Look of the Game - The components, miniatures, etc. make for a great looking game. To me that equates to something I enjoy playing. It is easy to get into the feeling of being a Marine fighting against those aliens. Using your custom abilities to win the firefight as you open doors and go into rooms and are suddenly attacked. I haven't been this excited about a board game in a long time. If you think you may be interested in Level 7 - Omega Protocol check it out on youtube. Particularly a channel called Dice Tower. They have a great review of the game. I got it based on their excitement about it and am very glad that I did!