XCOM® 2

One of my favourite strategy games of all time, a deep, complex game that is hard to put down. And with the mod support you have a bunch of mod support to play around with.

Best TRPG out there. Your actions here have consequences so you will really have to think about your every move. Its like playing chess but with soldiers sporting cools weapons and armors you havent seen before in other games.

Been putting off buying Xcom2 until now as I have too many game backlogs. So sorry no time to write long review as can't wait to jump back into the game. It's been a long time I have such fun!

I'm completely obsessed with this game. Insanely addictive.

I've played 20-ish hours on PC but over 200 hours on PS and Xbox. Easily one of my top 5 TBS. Certified GOAT status, hardest of the new franchise on higher difficulties. Worth the price when on sale. DLC adds a lot of replayability.

I love this game. It is incredibly addictive. For a full comprehensive review of why I love this game, please refer to other positive reviews with more detailed explanation. I am no good at reviews. Thank you.

Got the game because a streamer I watched seemed to be having a lot of fun, and I don't regret it.
The Classes, while not super numerous, still offer a pretty distinct playstyle.
The settings pretty cool.
Customization is good once you dive into the steam workshop.
The strategy is more about good decision making than complicated skills.

The one thing I actually hate is the crit mechanic, it just feels awful to permanently lose an invested unit because a grunt one shot you from full HP from behind full cover.

Also, while trying not to spoil anything, theres a certain earlyish game enemy that can hit you with one of their abilities from behind walls. They are the viper with its poison spit ability

Great graphics, gameplay mechanics, and fun elements of science and mystery.

One of the best games of all time, especially with mods! It takes the foundation of Enemy Unknown and builds on it while also turning the premise around so that we're fighting to reclaim the Earth and halt the aliens' nefarious plans before it's too late. If you enjoy turn-based tactics abd don't mind the heavy RNG and a bit of 2016 jank, this is a great game to pick up (especially for the current sale price of $3).

One of those games where I can't understand the appeal at all, and the rating seems either flat out faked/bought or totally wrong. Completely RNG and random fighting, which is fine, if it wasn't for the fact that in most levels aliens are pretty strong, and they get stronger over time than you do. Your troops only get stronger if they stay alive, and it seems like the enemies target the strongest one, or weakest health one to kill them. Late game, this translates into a bunch of low levels that get crushed if something so much as blinks at them. I appreciate trying to take the story into a different perspective, where you try to reclaim Earth from the aliens, but the tactical and strategic part of it is literally nothing like actual XCOM, it's completely gutted.

You just run around the map from place to place, all the while there's a giant timer that counts down to you ending the game, which is so cheesy I almost always turn it off, that alone ruins the game. The whole game is just pushing back the "game over" timer, and then certain events will trigger that speed it up.... like who tf is responsible for this core gameplay? They should have been fired and replaced immediately. There's nothing XCOM about this game at all, except for the general setting, units, and overall theme.

You don't interact with any of the nations, or any key political figures to get one up on the aliens in a realistic way, you don't make any secret colonies trying to build a bigger army, spread the word, etc, yet the enemy can build complete BS that speeds up the instant death timer, or super buffs their units.

This game is literally just playing Fallout Shelter, with a death timer that you push back, running around the map looking like a monopoly piece, trying to get basic resources in RNG combat that usually cost you your current best soldier, all the while the enemy does whatever they want. The DLCs aren't much more substance, the "War Of The Chosen" isn't bad, until you realize that it just adds 3 bosses that also each do their own thing, and buff all the other units, and/or make the death timer go EVEN quicker. Strong support effects means the bosses are strong right? Nope, guess again. I found all of their actual boss fights, although pretty cinematic, painfully plain and gimmicky. The only ones that do anything for you, are just cosmetic minus the robot one, and pack, but that also seems like a shell of what it should be and is quite lacking.
All the "Reinforcement Pack" really does is add another class, some cosmetics, some random bs, and unkillable bosses that can RANDOMLY show up in levels that usually just keep attacking and taking multiple turns per turn until you lose everything. Btw, this pack contains those 3 dlc you can't buy separately. Guess just by the reviews, which of the 3 is the one that makes the game unplayable?

If you want to have some form of fun in this game, I forgot the name of it, but there's an overhaul mod that makes this game feel more like it's supposed to. Your units are weaker and progress slower, but it's easier to save them when they go down, and you can use like twice as many per mission. However, this is where tactics comes in, the mod has some proper stealth mechanics, including the bigger your mission squad, the more enemies they add to the area. It also adds the colony system, setting up little safe areas across the world where your rebellion works underground, recruiting people, and getting the previously tedious to acquire resources over time. Also fixes/changes lots of other stuff, more skills in the skill trees, more dynamic robot people, better, balanced versions of those op mini-bosses, making the game over timer feel a little more forgiving, making the enemies ramp up slower, and more reactively to you and your activities, and pretty much improvements everywhere.

As much as I like mods though, I will never play a game that's dependent on them to make it fun in the first place, that's supposed to be the job of the people the company hired and pay for, not unpaid people who wished the game was better. This reminds me of Dawn of War. First game comes out, rave reviews, one of the best of all time. Sequel comes out, entirely different gameplay and vibe that's an overall decrease in gameplay quality in exchange for cinematic quality. What will complete this comparison, is if XCOM 3 comes out, is entirely different from both 1 and 2, and so bad it immediately kills the entire franchise on launch.

My favorite game. Infinitely replayable turn-based tactics.

Awesome game for anyone who is a fan of turn based tactical gun play, the best actually in my opinion, got the vanilla game and WOTC on offer for less than £6, best £6 i ever spent

If you enjoy a good Strat, turn-based RPG like BG3 then this is the game for you! This game was way ahead of the times when it came to a good turn based. I've owned this game for many years and played it many years. BG3 Revived that tasted for games like this. Only down side is, the base game itself is able to be beaten in a good 20-40 hours.

great turn based strategy game, be prepared to meet interesting soldiers , loose some and kill aliens.

long-time fan of the X-com franchise, and really love the framework X-Com 2 w/War of the Chosen provides. Every time that I play any other squad skirmish turn-based game, I end up wishing I was playing this game instead.

XCOM 2 is a true sequel in every sense, refining and expanding upon its predecessor in meaningful ways. The story takes a bold turn, flipping the dynamic of the original game. You’re no longer defending Earth from an alien invasion but leading a desperate resistance against a powerful alien empire.

The gameplay feels smoother and more dynamic. The addition of stealth mechanics provides more tactical options, while the expanded soldier progression options allows for deeper customisation and specialisation. Missions are more varied, the AI can be ruthless on higher difficulties, and the tension is ever present, making every decision count. Don't worry if you end up save scumming if you lose your favourite solidier, everyone does it at some point!

If you're considering playing, I highly recommend also getting the War of the Chosen DLC. It transforms an already great game into a masterpiece, introducing more factions and even more strategic depth. The Chosen themselves add a personal and unpredictable challenge.

I think that whether you're a seasoned XCOM veteran, a fan of turn-based strategy, or someone curious about the genre, XCOM 2 (especially with War of the Chosen) is one of the best games you can experience. A must-play for any strategy enthusiast!

4/5 (parts worth playing again)

It's quite good, and there are many clones out there as a result. It does have limitations and frustrating bits, and some bugs that will never be fixed, but you can work around them.

If you like turn based strategy and base building this is a great game

Especially with War of the Chosen added this is an AWESOME game that still keeps me entertained. Love the storyline especially.

Fantastic game! Bought for dirt cheap on a Steam sale, not expecting much, but wow. I was hooked the first run and couldn't leave the game alone for weeks. A must-buy on sale.

One of the most difficult and addicting games I've ever played. Absolutely amazing.

One of the great games out there. Especially with the War of the Chosen expansion. Only wish it could get a bit more challenging during the endgame.

XCOM 2 remains the best turn-based strategy game. Many aspects are handled just right—the background story, the unpredictability, the bonding with your characters, the development, and the complexity. Even little details, like the propaganda clips you hear upon returning from missions, add to the overall depth. And yes, it’s ruthless, unforgiving, and offers no handicaps.

Lots of cool character design options, can make some really funky fighters and give them a backstory.

Love the chosen fighters makes the missions more interesting, along with the weapons you get when defeating them. This also makes missions trickier.

Would highly recommend this game to anyone who has played any of the x-com series just a lot of fun with new features that also makes for a deeper immersion into the game and adds new levels of complicity.

Still a great tactical game with emergent storytelling through various events and tracking your soldiers with enough difficulty settings to challenge anyone (assuming you want a challenge). XCOM 3 when?

Very difficult, far more difficult than XCOM EU/EW

This is not a bad thing

The first few, 5-7(?) hours are incredibly annoying, more so if you are coming off an EU/EW campaign. If you can get past the hump just a bit, you begin to see your work pay off. I've got so much to learn, but it's still nice to see the fruits of my minimal labour so far.

One of the best Turn base Games lot of custumizations + mod community is awsome make game to different Level

One of the best turn based tacticals out there. Love the campaign progression as well, and the modding scene. The aesthetics, sound, flavor overall. Some minor glitches and issues, but nothing like modern games. Solid 9/10 highly recommended

This game has infinite content and replayability.... I wish I could be born again just to have more time to play it

Bad fighting mechanics, otherwise a interesting game. But what can you do if it´s core gameplay is total randomness.

Not as good as Xcom 2012. everything seems watered down or randomly extremely difficult.

excellent game! war of the chosen is alot more fun than the original version

What happened? I've had 100+ hours in this game. I've come back to it after, maybe 2 years and it's completely unplayable? I'm no expert it but I play on easy and have completed it several times. Now, it's almost impossible. I probably play the game wrong and admit I don't like losing my troops but the game seemingly insists that they MUST die every battle. It's boring. And lame. I used to enjoy this game for the casual strategy and custom building on my troops. Not anymore, apparently.

Well, it would be unfair if I marked it as a no, but...95% chance of hitting the target and missing, I almost broke the keyboard and the mouse! Also, tech aliens infested missions killing my operatives...! I don't know, it all depends on your reactions...!

The game doesn't launch on linux without war of the chosen installed. War of the chosen runs well on linux from the port, but the base game requires proton, which runs slowly and frequently crashes and regularly corrupts save files.

War of the chosen is a downgrade because it adds unavoidable content that undermines the core of the game. There is a good game here but its impossible to play because the base game does not function.

000000

Amazing game, my favorite feature is how no matter the chance you will still miss the shot

Fun game, but can be extremely frustrating. I really have three major complaints:

- The game seems to have a lot of UI or action bugs. There were a lot of moments where the game would lock up for over 10 seconds in an action camera. Disabling the action camera didn't really resolve this and it was super annoying when it happened. I also had some times where it take my click on an action as selecting a unit instead, which would get annoying. The last similar bug were when I shot too quickly after another action, the action would be taken without any actual shot being fired.

- The percentages it shows has to be weighted in some weird way. There were plenty of times that a 90% chance shot would miss. I got annoyed one time and reloaded for a 70% shot repeatedly, it took well over 10 reloads to hit. I read somewhere that the chances are predetermined in the save file, which doesn't make any sense when the first action I took that succeeded previously, failed on a reload.

- There are too many small unskippable cut-scenes that the game shows. When a dropship comes in, you get a cutscene for the dropship and a cutscene for when they land. When you're playing with lost, every lost reveal has a cutscene. Some enemy reveals get a cutscene.

These issues caused some annoying moments playing this game. I think the worst example of this would be my first lost missions, which was a crate recovery. It might've been my third mission in xcom 2.

- Squad is low on health after encountering a group of lost and advent.
- Chosen beams in (assassin) and joins the fight. I save to have a reload point.
- My sharpshooter uses the free pistol action on the 2nd story and shoots the chosen with a 70% chance to hit, successfully hits the shot.
- Take several actions killing lost and backing up units. Trigger a bunch of cutscenes showing new units.
- Wrong squad member is put in overwatch when I try to put someone on the balcony in Overwatch. They're close to the asssassin.
- Reload to try and select the correct action this time. Encounter bug where the sharpshooter doesn't fire a shot after the pistol. Give up and just shoot the chosen, miss the 70% chance this time. Reload 10+ more times.
- After hitting the shot, complete all the previous actions and wait for every cutscene again.
- Repeat

little bit to much on the save skumming to beat everything 1st time around, but overall a decent game

First Paragraph is the must know: I bought this game after a number of friends recommended it to me and the online community was very passionate about it. I can't express to you just how difficult this game is, but most of the difficulty is done in the right sort of way.

You know that Captain you spent over a dozen missions with doing highly risky stuff? Well too bad, because a Viper got him! You remember that medic you had high hopes of being an important field medic for the big boy teams you make and her bio says she is such a sweet heart? The chosen captured her, good luck getting her back from that high risk max-security 'black site' that a 'ruler' is also guarding. You member' that grenadier heavy that looks sort of like Elvis and is your favorite custom character you ever made? Well he died like a punk on an early mission because you weren't paying attention.

I love this game, but I must be into pain.

PROS:
-custom characters, i spend unnatural amounts of time designing characters
-choices matter, every step counts
-variety of maps, and i mean a very big VARIETY of maps
-variety of gear and equipment
-the research element is probably the best handled in any game i have seen in awhile, it is organic to the story and it flows very well with the plot
-the expansion DLC is decent and adds some much needed flavor to the vanilla game (though to be honest, it should have been made an update to the original game and they should have adjusted the price tag)
-the Avenger is a really cool ship and love designing the parts im allowed to design
-each class is unique and meaningful, matching your play style (though some are a bit better than others, I am a sucker for the specialist class)
-a wide variety of enemies to learn and adapt your tactics too
-mechs are cool, hacking them and using them to destroy its allies is even cooler
-i cant even describe to you what it is like to successfully hack a 'gatekeeper' on the last level
-weapons and armor upgrades MATTER! DO IT SOON!

CONS:
-very difficult game, even on rookie (might need to tone it down for XCOM 3 and make the current rookie mode the regular mode next time)
-the VIPER, dear God, that thing needs to be balanced next time, that tongue is a problem (kinky, but a problem)
-Codexes will ruin your day when things are going so well, game will fool you though, the other enemies around them are far more troublesome (shoot the Codex last and make them watch)
-honestly the only real complainy is some of the Quality of Life (QoL) stuff:
(a) like the memorial wall you have to exit out of and go back into
(b) easy missions disappear after awhile, which sucks for your rookies
(c) can't choose the class of the character, this is perhaps one of the most griped about things by veterans
(d) vanilla game did not have enough custom costumes or hairstyles IMO, DLC is a must and mods add flavor
(e) 4 classes is decent and the DLC adds more, but it would have been nice to have a couple more options

-That about concludes my review, XCOM 2 is a game you HATE to LOVE, but do anyway-

Good management/tactics game. Good sequel to Enemy Unknown/Within. Slightly dated in 2025 (9 years old), but still one of the most comprehensive campaign-based squad tactics games (sans meaningful story).

This is a very fun and engaging game. I have put over 1000 hrs into it over the years. However, I can no longer recommend this game. Firaxis/2K's constant meddling that they refer to as updates have broken more mods and interrupted more gameplay runs than I can count. They are a modding unfriendly company!

10/10 rock solid game.

If you're considering buying it, I suppose all you would need to do is know whether or not you like isometric turn based games in general, and rest assured, it was done solidly in this game.

Pros:
(Mechanics)
- The gameplay is just very fun.
- Leveling up your squad is really fun.
- 4 different classes to choose from, with the addition of some other soldier types as the game progresses (some of these are part of dlc.)
- Personally, I find the game mechanics fine, and rarely found any balancing issues, as per the varied difficulty scales.

(Aesthetics)
- Alien variations are numerous, and slowly introduced into the game at a satisfying pace. Some of the aliens actually look pretty cool.
- Very good ability to customize your units, one of the best in the genre. You can really take a stab at filling your team with amusing characters from pop-culture, with the help of some of the custom voices and appearance options found on the steam workshop. Or you could fill your team with look-a-likes of your friends.
- Generally smooth visual aesthetic to the UI, characters and maps.
- The voice acting is actually good, and rarely, if ever, cringey.

(Other)
- The Steam workshop can really add to this game. Want a full squad of Republic Commandos? Got it. Want the TF2 units on your team? Got it. Loads more, from goofy jiggle physics, way more Star Wars stuff, hundreds of pop-culture characters and voices, etc.
The Steam workshop also lends to this game the possibility of new variations of the campaign, with one called Long War being the most memorable to me.
The stuff on the Steam workshop aren't necessary, and this game is a 10/10 without it, but it's important to know that the game can expand extensively in regards to customization if you want it to.

No cons are worth mentioning to me.

(Less relevant reflections - You can stop reading here unless you want to hear rambling.)
The game ages ridiculously well alongside newer turn based isometric games of this kind. Maybe it's just because the studio had the resources to nail the game.
I find it hard to believe that there aren't more games in this specific genre. I would have expected some world war/military variations of this kind of game to have been made sooner, but we've only gotten the likes of games such as Forgotten but Unbroken recently, and they don't really seem to compare to XCOM 2 in terms of the features and smoothness involved in XCOM 2.
I also wish there was somehow a multiplayer component involved in the main campaign. In general, I would just love to see more multiplayer isometric turn based PvE games.
(Rambling continues)
I have this fascination with seeing some kind of XCOM 2 style MMO. Particularly the cities that have The Lost enemies in them, make me envision getting swarmed by Lost, until on one turn, an unknown sniper - another player - from up in the buildings fires a shot... but did he fire at the lost... or you!?

In my opinion, this game exceeds even XCOM: Enemy Unknown in terms of quality. Before I go any further, if you are looking to buy this game, wait til its on sale, it drops by 90% or more during sales, making it the peak time to get it. The base game is already pretty good with all the DLCs, but the game can be modded, which is where the real fun begins. In essence, this game is essentially XCOM: Enemy Unknown without the air combat and with a far higher amount of mods to choose from.

Also yes there are time limits, but the second wave options can be used to tune the mission and geoscape timers to something far more manageable. Also, for the geoscape timer, you can turn that timer back and get more time through various actions, so don't feel as if you are constantly being rushed.

Turn based tactical combat at its best. Highly moddable as well. I tended to favour a quality of life one where timers only started to run down when detected.

Great fun, and the DLC's actually feel worth their price in value. We'll probably never see another game centred so much on consumer satisfaction, and if there ever is, it will be bought out by some other nefarious corporation and gutted.

An exciting turn based shooter. If you like turn based gun play this game is for you. Just be mindful that the mechanics of the game can be very unforgiving if you are unfamiliar with them; so do't be afraid to save scum on your first play through.

one of the greatest Tactics game of all time. Even more fun with mods!

Love the hardcore strategy ship and tech update trees and such. hours of replayablility

This game has a very enjoyable gameplay loop, but the main thing this game has is replayability, theres so much variety and 'game' and even more with dlc especially War of the chosen. Tired of basegame and the dlc ? Just look at the steam workshop and find alot of mods that completely rework and expand the game. If you were stuck on an island and you could choose one game to play, if you choose xcom2 you would die before you did everything you could and wanted to in this game.

That all said, this game is hard and if you're not good at strategy games u will probably receive a pretty significant ass beating. For me that is a positive. Game is 5 bucks on sale, you get one of the best hours of playtime to price ratio there is on steam. I recommend to play basegame first and then start adding dlc and or mods.