I wasn't Colonial Marines biggest fan, aside from its technical difficulties it felt like it was shoehorned into the narrative between Aliens and Alien3 and the magical body swap they managed on Hicks just seemed a bit daft. However, if you want those events incorporated into the background of your Aliens universe, I say go for it.

That said I'm stealing the concept of the Boiler Xenomorph from the Hadleys Hope sewer level by tweaking the Cinematic PDF Xeno rules. It's a bit slower and less elegant than the regular Xeno and is less observant, but it goes off like a great big acid grenade (more so than usual), either because it's been heavily damaged or it commits suicide by rupturing one of its acid sack things. 

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Boiler 

It's unlikely that the plant at Hadley's Hope would actually wipe the place away. 
It's (quite intentionally) very hard to make a fission power plant go "BOOM!" The best you get is a steam explosion lit from below, and a glowing pool of mixed metal self-heating slag. And radioactive fallout everywhere nearby. 

Yet the massive thermo nuclear explosion we see at the end of Aliens which sends turbulence into space would beg to differ, and how Bishop explains there's going to be a hole the size of Nebraska.

As for Colonial marines, one of the big deals when they did the game was that it had been worked out with Fox that it was going to be canon. However, given the huge disappointment and fan backlash, I think Fox is now just quietly hoping that everyone forgets about it.

What game were we talking about again?

They've even taken elements from the unused William Gibson Alien 3 script (recently made into an audio drama) that features HIcks.

They even took the idea of the "monastic space station whose interior is completely made of wood"  (Arceon, page 157) from yet another unused Alien 3 script

It's unlikely that the plant at Hadley's Hope would actually wipe the place away. 
It's (quite intentionally) very hard to make a fission power plant go "BOOM!" The best you get is a steam explosion lit from below, and a glowing pool of mixed metal self-heating slag. And radioactive fallout everywhere nearby. 

Yes, TMI was "contained". 

However, one estimate put Chernobyl at 10 t TNT equivalent nuclear yield. That's very low by nuclear weapons standards, barely noticeable, and it's just one estimate. But it's yield nevertheless. 

I know in my scenarios, those built-by-the-lowest-bidder fission/FUSION reactors are gonna yield like a weapon.

On a tangent- how much of Gibson's Alien 3 is canon in this game? Before I buy the comic book adaptation. I don't like audiobooks. 

Alien 3 the movie did happen. Which version of alien 3 happened we are unsure of. But the end result for sure occurred and the surviving prisoner wrote a book that has spread out there in colonized space.

On a tangent- how much of Gibson's Alien 3 is canon in this game? Before I buy the comic book adaptation. I don't like audiobooks. 

Alien 3 happened in this game.
the timeline states there was a single survivor from Fury 161 named Morse who wrote a book that became a bestseller - some 70 years ago.
so you know, myth became legend and so on

On a tangent- how much of Gibson's Alien 3 is canon in this game? Before I buy the comic book adaptation. I don't like audiobooks. 

Alien 3 happened in this game.
the timeline states there was a single survivor from Fury 161 named Morse who wrote a book that became a bestseller - some 70 years ago.
so you know, myth became legend and so on

70 years? I need ro reread stuff, I thought  the game was only a couple of years after Alien 3.

 The person who who was still alive should have been Hudson. How good would it have been if he got pulled through the floor grates but managed to survive? The guy who said "17 days! I've got a news flash for you, we ain't gunna last 17 hours!" managed to survive on his own for the whole 17 days?

-The nuclear reactors of Hadley's Hope blew up at the end of Aliens wiping the site off the face of the planet. ... And yet you go there and walk around it 17 days later without suffering from drastic radiation poison or you know... the whole place being a pile of rubble? It even still has power!

Love this, will have to have Hudson alive, using newts tactics, he listened after fighting off the alien in the vent, badly burnt maybe, a little retcon, bishop miscalculated the blast? the yield?. The chitinous nest of the aliens acted as some sort of shield, deflecting the blast some how?, absorbing the radiation? I'm no scientist but i love a good story, especially if that means Hudson is now back in my aliens universe, canon to me.