Method of arrival:
Mother ship
Mother ship + smaller ships
An armada of all types
Single escape pod
Common personality dispositions:
Tyrannical
Angry
Self-Entitled
Curious
Fearful
Attributes of Aliens:
Odd looking, animalistic, slimy (if not slimy, then furry), well armored, advanced intelligence and often telepathic, sometimes robotic or cybernetic, well armed and almost always misinterpreted and misread by humans, completely different speaking/writing language, confused upon landing on Earth even though they are clearly the dominant species.
Alien Tech:
Advanced weaponry (often ‘plasma’ based, with every projectile being immensely explosive)
Teleportation
Advanced spacecraft and tactical aircraft
Interstellar Travel
FTL Travel (that’s faster than light, kids)
Planet-Destroying devices
Planet-Creating devices
Terra-forming devices (making Earth habitable to them)
Standard Tech Feature 1: Almost all tech controllable by thought
Standard Tech Feature 2: EVERYTHING has a self-destruct – nearly nuclear at that.
Motives for invasion:
Mining precious resources (they’ve run out on their home planet)
Overpopulation of home planet
Enslavement of lesser race
Extermination of lesser race (interstellar supremacy)
Expansion of Empire (interstellar supremacy)
Procurement of human hosts for parasites (Stargate, Aliens, Halo e.g.)
Response of Humans (Pre-warned):
Global panic
Shoot ALL our weapons at them
Reason with them
Unite the entire globe and Fight
Exploit some sort of ironic paradoxical weakness, such as water, common cold, etc.
Hide in underground bunkers
Response of Humans (No Warning)
Get vaporized
Hide
Enslavement
One need look no further than one of the greatest alien invasion chronoloogies of all time – the Stargate series (namely SG-1), as almost all memes/themes are present throughout.
I’ll try to think of more for later. :)