I had a nightmare of a time with the leg aswell. I had to strip back the rubber and just use a combination of dipping the joint in boiling water and brute force. I got it on eventually but not without rubbing off all the gloss paint and causing myself a lot of stress in the process. I honestly wanted to throw the figure on the ground and stamp it into oblivion such was my frustration. And at the end of it all its one of my least favourite Hot Toys figures in my collection as IMO it bears little resemblance to the film creature in the vital area of the face. The other innaccuracies I'd excuse if they'd gotten that area right but overall its a disappointing HT Alien made worse by the ridiculously difficult assembly.
I couldn't agree more. I only got this one because I got it with another HT figure (the T-600/Rubber skin version) and it cost me half of what most folks are usually charging for it (around 70 USD MIB. I'm not sure how much it was exactly because of the shipping fee for the two figures, but 70 dollars is a reasonable mark).
I finally managed to get the leg to fit onto the joint - alas not without submitting the figure to an obscene amount of stress. Also, the paint apps on the right leg's knee started to peel off out of all the pressure I had to apply to get it on. Add to that the fact that I feel rather insecure about posing the Alien, since if the darn leg comes off I probably won't have the patience to assemble it again.
Hot Toys has some of the licences I like the most, and so far I've had good experiences with their figures. It isn't to say though that they're all flawless. Every and each piece that I own has had some issue quality-wise, such as loose joints, weak pegs, extremely fragile accessories and the like. Still, I must confess that I'm generally pleased with their oft-debated use of stylization, since they tend to deliver really impressive and beautiful sculpts.
Even though I can understand the whole licensing issue that has been brought up a few posts ago - and on other posts as well - I think they can afford to go that extra mile and release action figures instead of model kits for the licenses they own without changing their - ever increasing - price tags. I bet they get lots of CS tickets for all the broken pegs and the such. That's a surefire way to piss collectors off, and if they really had any serious competitor, that'd surely hurt them. Nevertheless, as many others have said, it's not like we have an alternative action figure of this Alien on this scale - or in any other scale, since I'm not willing to include that 7" McFarlane garbage as a candidate. The same goes for most of Hot Toys' licenses and that's why we willingfully submit ourselves to performing the antithesis of what our hobby was supposed to do for us; ie., instead of having fun displaying our figures, we endure in fiendish activities such as putting the Dog Alien together, figuring out how to assemble John Connor's attire or being bored to tears while gluing the AvP Elder Predator's quills.
Sorry for the lenghty post. I'm just really, really pissed off.
edit: now that I see it assembled I tremble in fear when I think of doing some of the poses that were posted here!!
