It's a competition gun, designed to be shot
real fast. To make it happen, they came up with a completely new design with an inverted hammer above the barrel, which allows the bore axis to be lower than on any other pistol. A *lot* lower. But does it have to be so expensive because of that? Part of the high cost is the fact that the mechanism is much more complicated than your usual Browning locked breech design (it's also gas-delayed), but another major part is that the Alien is made to an extremely high standard of quality, it's up there among the best of the best custom 1911/2011 pistols and other high-end firearms.
Here's a picture of an all-black Alien next to a Predator, which is a very fast competition gun, but with a "normal" bore axis. Check out the location of the muzzle of each pistol in relation to the shooter's hand. The Alien pushes straight back, there's very little muzzle rise.