When comparing Alien Swarm vs Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, the Slant community recommends Alien Swarm for most people. In the question“What are the best 4-player local multiplayer games on Steam?” Alien Swarm is ranked 26th while Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Alien Swarm is:
The game consists of tried-and-true top-down shooter mechanics that will be familiar to most players; it is reminiscent of older arcade and console shooters.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to pick up and play, even for beginners
The game consists of tried-and-true top-down shooter mechanics that will be familiar to most players; it is reminiscent of older arcade and console shooters.
Pro Anyone can download and play the game as it is free-to-play and open-source
The game is completely free and has no microtransactions or ads.
The source code is also free and accessible, so the game can be easily modded.
Pro Easily play with up to 4-players in online co-op
Alien Swarm allows for up to 4-player online co-op, which makes for an easy way to play with a small group of friends or strangers.
Pro Convenient offline LAN support
Alien Swarm offers offline LAN (local area network) support, meaning that the game can be easily played locally with each machine connected together in the same place.
Pro Simple character creation with different classes
There are a few different classes available at character creation, each one has it's own abilities that are different from the others. Creating one is quite simple, which makes for a fast way to get into the game and start playing.
Pro Gold Standard for roguelikes
The controls and replayability have been refined over the years. Whether the player chooses to play with Tiles (graphics) or console (ASCII) the game works well even when choosing online or offline play. Either way there is just enough interface to play the game.
Cons
Con Can get a bit repetitive
The gameplay doesn't change much from mission to mission; you’re generally just shooting aliens over and over again.
Con Gameplay is too short
The main story only takes about three or four hours to complete, which means you could beat the game in one sitting pretty easily.
Con Have to fiddle with controls
Being that the game uses an emulated keyboard on screen it works best on tablet, though is not really the preferred method (but is the only one) since it takes up screen space.