A solid but flawed addition to the Alien franchise which sets up an interesting situation for sequel(s)

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2017)

Seeing the insane amount of one-star-reviews I felt like I had to say my part on the movie. First of all - no, it's not absolute garbage. And no, it's also not the god-tier movie that Alien fans wanted it to be, which was to be expected. I'll give a short overview of my thoughts:
*Pros:*
The cinematography is absolutely amazing, like it was in Prometheus. The effects are top-notch and the whole movie is very atmospheric.
Some questions from Prometheus get answered in a satisfying way and some are left open for theories and/or future answers. There is one scene in particular which I absolutely loved, I think you'll know when you see it yourself. For me personally it was the right amount of focus on previous events.
Michael Fassbender steals the show. Every scene with him on screen is a highlight. I will leave it at that because enough reviews already praised his performance. Because of this his character(s) are the most important aspect which contributes to it being a decent film. The story of David and Walter is intriguing and feels very authentic.
Many people criticize the philosophical parts of the movie but for me they were very enjoyable. It's not super deep but it adds to the story and certain characters, which is welcome in my opinion.
The design of the Alien(s) is great, its animations are flawless and it's creepy as hell, like you would expect.
*Cons:*
The story is predictable. Like, really predictable. Halfway in you know exactly what's going to happen, and if you think you might be wrong and they did this on purpose - well, no. It's really that simple. Personally I find it not that bad because the movie is still enjoyable but they definitely could have made it not that obvious.
Although this movie focuses on the Alien again I felt like it had too little highlights with it. I think if the movie was 20 minutes longer with more horror/creepy sequences it would be much better. You rarely see the Alien linger in the dark, instead it attacks aggressively whenever it can. A not-so spectacular finale contributes to the feeling that maybe they should have made the movie longer, with more highlights.
The crew is OK, but not at all comparable to the crew of the Nostromo. I didn't care at all what happened to them and they didn't have any memorable moments - except when they died. That being said, Daniels was fine. She's no Ripley but she serves the purpose well enough to not be annoying.
Yes, some decisions are simply stupid, but that's to be expected in a horror-esque movie. Surely they could have figured out a way to establish better decision-making but it's not as bad as some people want you to believe.
I think I covered the most important things. All in all it is an enjoyable movie, which is a welcome addition to the franchise. I'm looking forward to seeing the story progress, I just hope Ridley learns his lessons and delivers a true Alien masterpiece the next time. I'd rate it 7.5, but because the tendency on IMDb right now is towards 7.0, I'll give it an 8 to balance it out.