The headline feature of the patch is improved textures, with other "various visual improvements" promised. Additional fixes patch up audio bugs in cutscenes, players falling through the map, and an bug that caused players to occasionally spawn without a weapon.

The update also includes the fixes from the recent title update on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as including some changes of its own that will feature in an upcoming patch for the console versions.

Steam will automatically download the patch.

Last month managed to get the Unreal Engine-powered game running with DirectX 10 rendering.

For more on Aliens: Colonial Marines, .

The patch notes in full:

General

- Improved texture resolution.
- Various visual improvements.
- Added mouse smoothing to options menu.
- Fixed crashes tied to launch and motion tracker.
- Added additional safeguards to better protect save data.
- Resolved an issue where a player's level could sometimes appear incorrect when backing out of a party.
- Addressed several scenarios under which players could spawn without a weapon.
- Changes to better prevent audio from sometimes cutting out during end of mission cinematics.
- Fixed issue where Xeno death animation was not properly calculating momentum of the killing blow.
- Smart Gun animation now properly tracks targets.
- Addressed some instances where Xenos would display erratic animations.
- Increased light radius for player's shoulder lamp.
- Adjusted aim assist to better reflect player input.
- Addressed an issue that could sometimes cause co-op player revival to not work under certain circumstances.
- Addressed issues with players not spawning into a level properly.
- Fixed a marine player invincibility exploit.
- Resolved several instances where players could walk or fall outside of maps.
- Addressed an issue where Ripley#147;s Flamethrower (bonus content) would sometimes fire continuously without player input.
- Fixed an issue that could cause localized text to sometimes display incorrectly.
- Addressed an issue where weapon ammunition was not always highlighted properly.
- General user interface improvements.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Campaign

- Tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Modified campaign difficulty to account for improved AI responsiveness.
- Improved enemy collision detection regarding doors and Power Loader.
- Addressed some issues that could cause improper warping for co-op players.
- Various tweaks to address instances where NPC characters would not always properly navigate to objectives.
- Players will no longer bleed out immediately when downed in a Power Loader.

Versus

- Fixed issues that could cause clients to report inaccurate results and statistics.
- Addressed instances where a map would appear to #147;pop in#147; when loading into a new match.
- New Xeno appearance customization added.
- Multiplayer teams should now correctly auto-balance between rounds.
- Increased duration of Lurker Pounce Challenge #147;Cat-Like Reflexes#147; from 10 to 20 seconds.
- Fixed issue where certain multiplayer challenges would not unlock properly for all characters.
- Crusher pick-ups now correctly appear as highlighted for clients.

From: www.gamespot.com

The headline feature of the patch is improved textures, with other "various visual improvements" promised. Additional fixes patch up audio bugs in cutscenes, players falling through the map, and an bug that caused players to occasionally spawn without a weapon.

The update also includes the fixes from the recent title update on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as including some changes of its own that will feature in an upcoming patch for the console versions.

Steam will automatically download the patch.

Last month managed to get the Unreal Engine-powered game running with DirectX 10 rendering.

For more on Aliens: Colonial Marines, .

The patch notes in full:

General

- Improved texture resolution.
- Various visual improvements.
- Added mouse smoothing to options menu.
- Fixed crashes tied to launch and motion tracker.
- Added additional safeguards to better protect save data.
- Resolved an issue where a player's level could sometimes appear incorrect when backing out of a party.
- Addressed several scenarios under which players could spawn without a weapon.
- Changes to better prevent audio from sometimes cutting out during end of mission cinematics.
- Fixed issue where Xeno death animation was not properly calculating momentum of the killing blow.
- Smart Gun animation now properly tracks targets.
- Addressed some instances where Xenos would display erratic animations.
- Increased light radius for player's shoulder lamp.
- Adjusted aim assist to better reflect player input.
- Addressed an issue that could sometimes cause co-op player revival to not work under certain circumstances.
- Addressed issues with players not spawning into a level properly.
- Fixed a marine player invincibility exploit.
- Resolved several instances where players could walk or fall outside of maps.
- Addressed an issue where Ripley#146;s Flamethrower (bonus content) would sometimes fire continuously without player input.
- Fixed an issue that could cause localized text to sometimes display incorrectly.
- Addressed an issue where weapon ammunition was not always highlighted properly.
- General user interface improvements.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Campaign

- Tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Modified campaign difficulty to account for improved AI responsiveness.
- Improved enemy collision detection regarding doors and Power Loader.
- Addressed some issues that could cause improper warping for co-op players.
- Various tweaks to address instances where NPC characters would not always properly navigate to objectives.
- Players will no longer bleed out immediately when downed in a Power Loader.

Versus

- Fixed issues that could cause clients to report inaccurate results and statistics.
- Addressed instances where a map would appear to #146;pop in#146; when loading into a new match.
- New Xeno appearance customization added.
- Multiplayer teams should now correctly auto-balance between rounds.
- Increased duration of Lurker Pounce Challenge #146;Cat-Like Reflexes#146; from 10 to 20 seconds.
- Fixed issue where certain multiplayer challenges would not unlock properly for all characters.
- Crusher pick-ups now correctly appear as highlighted for clients.

From: www.gamespot.com

The headline feature of the patch is improved textures, with other "various visual improvements" promised. Additional fixes patch up audio bugs in cutscenes, players falling through the map, and an bug that caused players to occasionally spawn without a weapon.

The update also includes the fixes from the recent title update on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as including some changes of its own that will feature in an upcoming patch for the console versions.

Steam will automatically download the patch.

Last month managed to get the Unreal Engine-powered game running with DirectX 10 rendering.

For more on Aliens: Colonial Marines, .

The patch notes in full:

General

- Improved texture resolution.
- Various visual improvements.
- Added mouse smoothing to options menu.
- Fixed crashes tied to launch and motion tracker.
- Added additional safeguards to better protect save data.
- Resolved an issue where a player's level could sometimes appear incorrect when backing out of a party.
- Addressed several scenarios under which players could spawn without a weapon.
- Changes to better prevent audio from sometimes cutting out during end of mission cinematics.
- Fixed issue where Xeno death animation was not properly calculating momentum of the killing blow.
- Smart Gun animation now properly tracks targets.
- Addressed some instances where Xenos would display erratic animations.
- Increased light radius for player's shoulder lamp.
- Adjusted aim assist to better reflect player input.
- Addressed an issue that could sometimes cause co-op player revival to not work under certain circumstances.
- Addressed issues with players not spawning into a level properly.
- Fixed a marine player invincibility exploit.
- Resolved several instances where players could walk or fall outside of maps.
- Addressed an issue where Ripley#133;s Flamethrower (bonus content) would sometimes fire continuously without player input.
- Fixed an issue that could cause localized text to sometimes display incorrectly.
- Addressed an issue where weapon ammunition was not always highlighted properly.
- General user interface improvements.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Campaign

- Tweaked enemy and friendly AI to be more aggressive and responsive.
- Modified campaign difficulty to account for improved AI responsiveness.
- Improved enemy collision detection regarding doors and Power Loader.
- Addressed some issues that could cause improper warping for co-op players.
- Various tweaks to address instances where NPC characters would not always properly navigate to objectives.
- Players will no longer bleed out immediately when downed in a Power Loader.

Versus

- Fixed issues that could cause clients to report inaccurate results and statistics.
- Addressed instances where a map would appear to #133;pop in#133; when loading into a new match.
- New Xeno appearance customization added.
- Multiplayer teams should now correctly auto-balance between rounds.
- Increased duration of Lurker Pounce Challenge #133;Cat-Like Reflexes#133; from 10 to 20 seconds.
- Fixed issue where certain multiplayer challenges would not unlock properly for all characters.
- Crusher pick-ups now correctly appear as highlighted for clients.

From: www.gamespot.com

Rounding out the top five behind Dead Space 3 and Black Ops II were was the sixth best-selling title during February in the US. The full top ten list is below.

Overall, industry sales for the month slid 25 percent to $810 million. According to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan, however, these sales represent only 50 percent of the total market.

"These sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which account for roughly 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games," Callahan said in a statement. " When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales in February such as used and rentals at $90 million, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps, and the consumer spend on social network games at $319 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in February to be just under $1.2 billion."

Total software sales for February dove 27 percent to $369.9 million. Callahan explained that though there was the same number of February launches this year that made it to the top ten list as there were last year, these titles performed far worse. Unit sales were down 30 percent, he said.

In addition, Callahan said the .

"When combining the dollar value of Skylanders software as well as accessories, this property has generated over $600 million in the U.S. since launching in October 2011, and sold $35 million in this month alone," he said. "It will be interesting to watch how this dynamic of physical goods delivering digital content evolves with the launch of Disney Infinity later this year."

Hardware fared the worst in February, diving some 36 percent to $244.2 million. Despite this year-over-year downturn, Callahan some platforms, like the Wii U and PlayStation Vita, showed signs of life.

"Looking at hardware sales on an average per week basis, all platforms showed an increase from January into February. Specifically, new platforms like the Wii U and PS Vita demonstrated some momentum from the typical January hardware lull with increases of over 40 percent and 30 percent respectively," he said.

Microsoft was the only hardware maker to announce sales data for the month, earlier today trumpeting an during the period.

As for accessories, this category was down 3 percent year-over-year to $213.9 million. But again, Activision's Skylanders series was a bright spot.

"Skylanders' success so far this year was driven by strong growth seen in the single character packs for Skylanders Giants which have a favorable comparison to sales of the single character packs for the first Skylanders," Callahan said.

FEBRUARY US GAME SALES (February 3-March 2, 2013)
OVERALL DOLLAR SALES
Total retail sales: $810.0 million (-25%)
Non-PC hardware: $244.2 million (-36%)
Non-PC software: $352.0 (-27%)
Accessories: $213.9 million (-3%)
Total software: $369.9 billion (-27%)

TOP 10 GAMES FOR FEBRUARY 2012

Title (Platforms) - Publisher
1. Dead Space 3 (X360, PS3, PC) - Electronic Arts
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (X360, PS3, Wii U, PC) - Activision Blizzard
3. Crysis 3 (X360, PS3, PC) - Electronic Arts
4. NBA 2K13 (X360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC) - Take-Two Interactive
5. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3, X360) - Konami
6. Aliens: Colonial Marines (X360, PS3, PC) - Sega
7. Just Dance 4 (Wii, X360, PS3, Wii U) - Ubisoft
8. Far Cry 3 (X360, PS3, PC) - Ubisoft
9. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (PS3, PS Vita) - Sony
10. Madden NFL 13 (X360, PS3, Wii, PS Vita, Wii U) - Electronic Arts

From: www.gamespot.com