[Phalanx]

I think in a lot of cases your observation about this movie having to live up to a lot is what's working against it.

I don't HATE the film as such...just don't like it all that much.
The human characters, not great, ok, but...whatever.
Could be just me but I felt the "black chick" seemed to just be an effort to one-up Ripley as an anti-stereotype, wait...they already had a tough chick, oh hey, make her black?
I was a bit disappointed at the fight the predators seemed capable of holding up - I mean, is this not a species they've been training to kill? I know it's a bit of a right of passage, but they pretty much got slaughtered for the better part.
Atmosphere is largely what it comes down to, not say, as little (or non-existant) as the atmosphere was in AVP2, but still, a little lacking for my liking.

But other than that, I didn't mind that they might've messed with the continuity of the series as a lot of people seem to bitch about...I didn't mind the whole "pyramid" and "alien trap" thing...nothing big against this film, but I wouldn't buy it, or recommend it to anyone not interested in the series in the first place.