The greatest threat the Aliens present to the universe is the fact they spawn too quickly, and, en mass, perhaps could lay waste to alot of it.
The Predators (humans even) are equipped to handle the threat and always do. We cannot take a few events from a few movies and use them as an overall deciding factor in who really would win.
Strategically, and by way of intellegence and weoponry, the Predators could kill any Alien force on a planet simply by bombarding the surface first and then finishing off the rest like cattle. In the case their lair is underground, the Predators have a way of dealing with that as well. The Predators are not stupid and would know what to do before they actually do it. With the Aliens, they don't know whats going on until they sense intruders.
Also consider that the Queen is a handicap to the Aliens as well. Without her the hive has no sense of direction or order and becomes much more predictable as it is now more ferel and animalistic than it was before. If the general of a Predator army was killed, theres always another fully trained professional to take his place. Not necessarily so with a Queen. Without her, the hive cannot function as well as a unit and they may turn on eachother.
The Predators could destroy the Aliens from afar, and then execute the rest of them in person. This isn't to say the Predators are cowards, since they prove time and time again that they often challenge death, despite the outcome. The fact they might do this as part of their tactics doesn't make it unfair. Its not their fault the Aliens are just aliens. Its like blaming one alien race for simply being superior to another.
It really is no contest. AVP (the movie that is) proved one thing- that while the Aliens are a problem the Predators own them as the whole movie revolved around the manipulation and control of the situation the Predators exterted. Everything was a pawn to them, and while they could not predict the deaths of the unexperienced Predators going in, they had countermeasures for everything. They were so confident frommany past battles and experiences, that even an unexperienced squad of Predators could potential complete their mission and training exercise.
The Predators work in small numbers, because they're that damn powerful and don't need the extra backup, and because when hunting, its just a fact that small squads are more mobile and effective for most mission profiles.
Presuming it ever came to a full-scale war, we'd no doubt see hundreds of Predators, if not thousands (and thats at just one battle location), instead of the lone ones, or squads we've seen thus far. And that many Predators in one place, at one time.....sorry, the Aliens don't stand a chance, even if they do outnumber the Predators 3 to 1, or even more. Also consider any missle weopons the Predators may have, and other artillery.
Pound for pound, intellegence for intellgence, fighting ability for fighting ability, and weopons for weopons, the Predators are better than the Aliens and always have the CHOICE of wiping them out. The reason they do no however is if they were to do one large purging, this particular game would become extinct or be wiped out completely, and they don't want that, as the Predators will admit, the Aliens are a worthy foe.
As long as the Aliens can be kept in line and their population monitored, then there will be no Alien dominance in anything. The Predators obviously don't sweat it, as they actually create Aliens themselves and force them to breed for the sake of their training exercises. Even if these are confined environments, the fact they do this at all goes to show they do not want to wipe this race out because its too precious to them.
The obvious potential threat would be in a huge hive attack, planet for planet, like an invasion. But even then, one missle could pretty much even the odds, whether it was an unscalable battle or something much smaller.
Just as a race, the Aliens fall short because they are little more than animals.
And I wasn't particularly impressed with AVP anyway. It was exagerated in the previews, and the trailer was very misleading. It led us to believe there was going to be or was a huge battle, but it was really just a skirmish mission. That was dissappointing, dispite the few zingers they threw at us. But even those were predictable.
PS: I realize some of what I've said is spoiler material, and I wouldn't have talked about it otherwise if people weren't already talking about it and ruined it for those that have not seen it yet.
