Xenonauts 2

So much like the old Xcom before Xcom went off the rails. A fun play through.

Prolog:
Alright So, I love this genre of games, turn based tactics is my jam.
I've played many hours on Xenonauts 1 and had a blast, thought the game isn't without it's faults it was still a great game.

Xenonaughts 2:
Again, a fantastic game, with Alot of time put into it and i honestly give the thumbs up to buy it in it's current state.
I rarely ever take the time to leave a review on a game however this one is out of sheer frustration.
The Cyber Drones. Everyone is thinking it, everyone is talking about and please for the love of god devs, pay attention.
I love how you've reworked the reapers to an extent from game one, but replacing them with a multi-shot, high accuracy, across the map explosive destroyer that spawns with between 300-900hp AHEAD of your tech level is just flipping mad.

They can in one turn suppress and literally vaporise 6 men by surprising you around a corner or just spawning turn 1 in an inconvenient far away spot in line of sight.
If you just play your own god given game you'll see how this isn't a fun "tactical" enemy to strategize around when it spawns on top a building half way across the map.

Anyway, overall, great game but with one or two hiccups that will, not once, twice or even three times make you want to pull your hair out pretty much everytime and make the the game unwinable or extremely tight and anti-fun if you play veteran or above.
Goodluck and happy hunting.

Its not bad. A lot of stuff is missing though.

- No called shots. All shots seem to be center mass.
- Cannot go prone, can only crouch.
- No Soldier editor, so no custom soldiers.
- Air combat not fleshed out. I love it that this is in and that we have pilots, but without this section being finished it kind of impacts every game.
- Missions are repetitive and you don't seem to have multiple missions to select from. You just have to take what you get and without any difficulty info.
- Not really a huge improvement over xenonauts 1.

There ar some pros. Game is stable. Neat enemies. There is more but I really want to see how this is finished.

[tl;dr]

It's grim, hardcore and unforgiving but SO much satisfying.

Note:
I played this game earlier and it was too buggy and felt unfinished. With the release on Milestone 5, I decided to give it another try and boy, what a change! I had an absolute blast playing through the campaign and just completed the game on the normal difficulty.

What I liked:

- This is a good old-school X-com, without fancy blows and whistles. No million-dollar intro cinematic, no baby cute animations, no unnecessary cut-scenes. You get briefed with a quick dialogue and it's time for action. You miss a shot, that's it. You walk into the dark and stumble into an alien, you're 99% dead. You shoot unarmoured alien tissue with a fusion rifle, it explodes with pink mist. Same with your soldiers and casual citizens, by the way. It's grim, hardcore and unforgiving but SO much satisfying.
- Graphic aesthetics, you can clearly see how well art design was done. Nothing feels and looks out of its place. I had a good time exploring different buildings and objects, aliens and their ships, weapons and equipment etc.
- Maps have nicely done terrain with lots of attention to detail, like you walk on snow and you can see foot (or claw) prints. Also, map size is just perfect for me - it's not too large, so I spend hours looking for the last enemy, it's not too small either.
- The game is intuitive, there are tutorials but you really can figure out everything after a few fights. You don't need a 100-page manual to enjoy the game and, most importantly, it's enjoyable for the very first minute after you establish your base.
- Audio and music complete the immersion, they don't distract. I rarely play any game with its original soundtrack, this one was an exception.

What I believe could be improved:

- The game is occasionally lagging, even though I played on AMD's 7800x3d / 7800XT, i.e. my FPS dropped below 10 during enemy activity.
- Aerial combat is a placeholder. Didn't bother me personally, since I played on low difficulty and mostly auto-resolved fights.
- A bit more story and/or some side missions would be much appreciated.
- Smoke grenades felt OP. Nothing else is even close.

What should change right away:

- Option to customize soldiers (now you can only change name), and no, I'm not asking for pink armour.
- Colossal armour should have more equipment available for it, other than machine guns and their ammo. Overall, more armour types would be much appreciated.
- More options to earn daily operational points. The whole OP system felt like a placeholder rather than something implemented thoroughly.

Great game even in early access.

Nice step up from Xenonauts 1,

No complains so far

Played the original and loved it, but the sequel adds many quality of life stuff. Love the new pacing of the story with the new phases system. Makes the geoscape feel more real.

Xcom my beloved :D welcome back!
I played three hours, lost 5 marines in the first battle and two in every fight after that, then the world descended into nuclear war and I lost! cool! gonna try again though so its one of "those" games. (vicious difficulty but long term rewarding) I recommend if you don't mind having your ass handed to you a couple times!

Very good. Significantly less RNG jank than new X-COMs (still a lil bit tho, its part of the charm). Try ironman mode for added satisfaction

It's UFO: Enemy Unknown (x-com) but better. I love the new modern Xcoms, they are fantastically made, but Xenonauts 2 brings back the feel of the original 90s game. A threatening, slow burn of an adventure without forgiveness and with the good old random shots that could hit anything and everything and either save your day or ruin it. Absolutely love it!

A visual bug wrecked my entire campaign on day 74.

I was playing this game on a the very difficult setting and enjoying the challenge until a UFO mission on day 74 ended my chance of continuing. It was near the end of the mission. I used an explosive to breach the outer door of the UFO and positioned my men in the antechamber. The second door to the UFO appeared closed even though I was getting a firing solution on aliens inside the ship. Well, I thought that was a visual bug because how could I target them from behind an obviously closed door? No one had come in or out that door after all. Well, I should have taken my shots (which I assumed would have been an exploit) because when I finished my turn it turns out the aliens were able to take theirs. I was completely out in the open with no smoke screen. One assault down, another bleeding out, a medic/rifle suppressed. Now, more confused than ever, I was like: Close the damn door! Lol, jokes on me, now the visual bug was reversed. I foolishly re-opened the door (which currently looked open, but was actually closed) and I got shot by reaction fire again. My entire team was now down except for two soldiers: a medic and a grenadier. I did my best but ultimately my entire squad died. This was game ending. There was no way for me to recover on this difficulty with only 2 or 3 remaining soldiers in medbay at home and 62 ops left to delay doomsday. What a waste. And now I'm thinking of all the other things I could have done with my time.

I will probably come back to this game, but not until I have assurance that these visual bugs, of which there have been plenty for some time now (albeit nowhere near as ruinous as this) are actually, finally fixed. Developers, please get your house in order. This is unacceptable quality. I can deal with disappearing civilians or sentry guns that are still standing up after their death animation has played, but this door-is-open-or-closed crap is not.

Recommendation: Do not buy.

Its okay, good even, my big issue with the game is that you walk into situations completely blind that you shouldn't be blind in, and then get punished for taking too long. and i mean LITTERALY blind, you land your helicopter and dont know whats immediately outside of it, you dont know where your objective is, you don't have the slightest idea of where you are, what terrain your in or whats around, even though you just supposedly landed a helicopter here. like nobody bothered looking out a window for the entire flight or some shit. so you naturally fan out your troops to scout the area, then get fucked because you're too spread out and people aren't covering each other. combine that with time limits and i instantly closed the game.
you can't have a gameplay loop that denies information and pushes you to play slow and methodical to avoid permadeaths, and then slap a time limit as a secondary objective that only "partially ends your entire campaign" if you dont complete it.
i'm on my first week still in game and i'm at 60/100 doom, gaining 5 doom per day, 100 doom is a lost campaign. and i wont be able to fix the doom gain without waiting ~25 days or so. so unless something changes my first playthrough died before it even really started.

Honestly, I bought the game when it first came out. I loved X1 and was initially wary of X2, but the game has come a long long way since then. Its a lot of fun. I'd buy it with or without a sale tbh.

its what 'xcom' should have been, im not sure i prefer it over the original original but its nit pick differences rather than almost an entire genre difference. updates have been rolling in frequently and roadmapped openly so yeah +1

Xenonauts is very reminiscent of the classic and older X-COMs. It is a broader product with a more artistic look and offers many more unit configurations than X-COM. If it were a little more polished with features like those of the game PHOENIX POINT, it would be a more beautiful game and perhaps it could attract more players.

It doesn't lose anything in terms of concept compared to other games of the genre, but it leaves something to be desired in terms of excitement and the desire to keep playing over and over again. I think the best model for a comparative analysis and that could be used as a model for a product redesign is PHOENIX POINT. It is similar, complete and with 3D that fills the screen!

The greatest charm of this game is the concept of a military more from our decade, not futuristic, but with an enemy from another world. In a remake with something more three-dimensional, I would particularly be inspired by the film BATTLE FOR LOS ANGELES. I think it would be really cool to manage the marines, rangers and even spec ops forces.

Great product for those who enjoy TURN GAME and like to do multiple micromanagements, although not as complete as PHOENIX POINT, but just as complex and challenging.

Good product, I recommend buying it at full price to stimulate the market! I hope you like it!

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Xenonauts lembra muito os X-com Clássicos e mais antigos, um produto mais amplo, com um visual mais artístico oferece bem mais configurações de unidades que o X-COM, se fosse um pouco mais polido com características como o do jogo PHOENIX POINT, seria um jogo mais bonito e quem sabe pudesse atrair mais jogadores.

Em si não perde em nada no conceito para outros jogos do genero, mas deixa a desejar no conceito de empolgação, de querer ficar jogando várias vezes, acho que o melhor modelo para fazer uma análise comparativa e que pudesse seguir de modelo para um redesenho de produto é o PHOENIX POINT, é similar, completo e com um 3D que enche a tela!

O maior charme desse jogo é o conceito de uma militaria mais de nossa década, nada futurista, mas com um inimigo de outro mundo, em um remake com algo mais tridimensional particularmente eu me inspiraria no filme BATALHA POR LOS ANGELES, acho que seria bem legal gerir os marines, rangers e até mesmo forças spec ops.

Baita produto para quem curte um TURN GAME e gosta de fazer multiplos microgerenciamentos, embora não tão completo quanto ao PHOENIX POINT, mas complexo e desafiador como.

Bom produto, recomendo compra em preço cheio pra estimular mercado! Espero que gostem!

I enjoy the game. Since it doesn't look like there will be an XCOM 3, I am glad I can play this. The game is unforgiving when you make a mistake, but patience helps a lot. The RNG can be a pain. If you like XCOM games you should like this.

God i hate RNG.
God i suck at these types of games.
But GOD do i love em.
really good take on the XCOM style of games.

Much more fleshed out now that mile stone 5 is out. Great game could use a few more scary end game enemies especially for operation end game. Over all still great just feels like there should be more of an "Oh sh!t" moment when you land and see a new enemy.

This game has QOL features and game mechanics that no other game has. This is the CLEANEST, most REWARDING, most STREAMLINED version of the XCOM experience, by miles.

Great game that keeps the heritage of the original old school XCOM games, and so glad they're taking this game to the finish line having almost completed development.

over half of the research options, equipment's, and choices to be made are entire noob traps that the community will actively dog on you for falling for. Not sure why you would include 2/3rds of the game when you prescript it all to be a synthetic learning curve of "learn to NOT use this" over and over again.

Game phasing is so slow. Ther is no combat flow . I cant enjoy it . wish i can but i cant.

With the new Milestone 5 update the game is almost complete and there is no reason to go back to Xenonauts 1 or any of the OG XCOMs anymore. This is a great take on the old school XCOM formula with a focus on tough tactical battles and frequent difficult choices where sacrifices need to be made. Compared to the "modern" XCOMs, this is more focused on the tactical decision making in battles, positioning, plan of attack, etc. There are more units and more strategic decisions. It's less of a cinematic action shooter, and obviously there are no grand cinematics like in the AAAs.

The cleaner segment is a great addition to the XCOM formula to ease you into fighting aliens. Mission variety is good and progression feels on point. Their work to add more choices and variety on the world map has been a good direction, it feels more alive to have to fight govt infiltration and worry about some geopolitical activities. The original always felt a bit weird as to why you're the only one bothering to do anything and Xenonauts provides a lot more flavor and background as to what's going on. Simple popups of various army forces and and civilian airliners being destroyed by aliens on the world map also add a fun flavor to the overall setting.

Again this is a TOUGH turn based strategy, so a better fit for those who are looking for a more tactical experience. It won't hold your hand like the mainstream titles. You need to use ALL of your equipment that you bring, deploy smokes everywhere, move around in teams with cover fire, and be happy with 50-60% objective completion in the best of cases.

Over the last decade I'd say Xenonauts 2 is the best tactical combat turn-based strategy game along with Battle Brothers.

If you liked old school XCOM or played Xenonauts 1 then this is probably for you. It's still in early access but has minimal bugs and the developers are constantly working on it to improve it and are actively listening to player feedback and have been extremely kind (even going as far as a developer taking my save file to repair it after i experienced a bug that softlocked my game). Every update the game gets better, and I'm eager for the full release when it comes!

Honestly, this game is a diamond in the rough due to its nature of early access. Top line if you don't wanna read my blabbering, It's really good for early access, and playable fully, but this properly puts early in the term early access, with WIP written everywhere. I would give it a 7/10 pending full release.

This game was bad, very bad, prior to the 3/30/25 Update, which improved the game - gameplay wise and balancing wise immensely. For the pros, It's a really good isometric combat game with flavors and inspirations obviously from the original XCOM, with tidbits I feel that remind me a lot of the older fallouts, I enjoy the combat no matter how harsh the accuracy penalties can be. I also love the setting with the cold war extending into the 2000s, and the simple modern take on technology over the exaggerated scifi of XCOM. I really love the way the game progresses with the new phases, properly pacing the campaign somewhat (even though I think it deserves a lot more fleshing out of the story), and I also love some of the way the enemies are designed, such as the cleaners (even though I do think they need to be fleshed out more according to their background to make their appearance more meaningful). The game is very rewarding if you can properly acknowledge strategy and safety, with raids of 3 guys on each door being almost very prone to success, and very punishing if you don't, with simply walking into a random room liable to get your favorite soldier given 17 variations of the american hello in their chest cavity. A very underrated touch is the aerial combat although it is blatantly unfair at first.

Unfortunately now for the cons - If you need HANDHOLDING, Xenonauts 2 will most likely not be for you unless you are willing to put in a lot of research or accept the idea of losing a few campaigns, It essentially drops you head first into a pool expecting you to swim like an olympic athlete, and you will, eventually. But this means it can be very annoying to see, like being unsure when to start making more bases, what to do with certain aspects of the GUI, or what the attributes of soldiers should mean to you. You may also prioritize researches that shouldn't have been, and make other mistakes. Still, it has a bare-bones tip system that does enlighten you to its features like carrying and whatnot, so your not completely blind, but there is much to be desired. Moreover, the storytelling needs work, a lot, it drops you in either expecting you to know the background or neglecting to tell you, with a lot of need-to-know things that only spring up once you stumble on it, the background for the first mission and the intro really does need work, and so do the Cleaners for instance, as in need to be fleshed out and properly have more meaning and text to when you interact with them, the scaling of your enemies also needs work, with other players I've seen complaining on enemies rolling out their elites and upping equipment while they're still on basic things, but I've yet to encounter this issue personally. Biggest con, Your xenonauts can't use their beloved purple aura'd psionics that their enemies have used, here, it seems (unless the developers will make an executive change on it for final release) that psionics will unfortunately remain as an alien tool, not for you to use.

All in all - It's a decent game for an EARLY ACCESS game, emphasis on that, because Xenonauts 2 puts the Early in Early Access. It's somewhat close to its full release, but as most early access games, it just requires polishing and more love, which will come with time. Buy it if it's on sale or if your legitimately interested after watching a few videos on it. I cannot tell you that it will be worth it now, but it will be worth it in time.

This game is coming along real nice. If you liked the gameplay style of og X-com but want a newer game with less trouble, this game and the previous one are the best for it

Pretty cool xcom like but a bit more hardcore, does not hold your hand.

So far I have enjoyed the game but I am just a casual player of this and the Devs have been active and everytime I have looked back at the game it has had atleast one if not more "milestone" patches since I last played. if you enjoyed the first one then I feel you will enjoy this one as well and the Devs do seem dedicated to producing a good game so I wouldnt worry to much but as with any early access game it is always a risk.

I dont have much else to say positive or negative... I think it overall feels like a better Xenonauts one so take that how you will.

Grabbed it on sale as I really loved the old X-Com UFO Defense. And it feels a lot like that with modern polish. The intro feels good. Has all the pieces. I believe they will finally release the live version soon. If you really love the old X-Com original and want a modernized play through it might be worth getting this while on sale or you can wait for release. Just thought I would high light this one as I think the actual release of the game is coming soon while it is on sale.

It´s a good game. I am being entertained.

True enough to the old xcom with some good improvements. Rare crash or bug. Still completing the game but good replayability and challenging even on lower skill levels.

I played a little bit of Milestone 4 but ever since Milestone 5 with the varies bug fixes needed to bring it to the stable branch the game is pretty good. (I finished the game on veteran difficulty)

PROS
1. Progression feels really good especially early game (they redid the early game as apart of milestone 5)
2. The enemies being very different from each other (especially later on) makes each encounter quite a bit different and you have to figure out how to win with what you brought
3. The strategic part of the game is pretty solid (a lot of waiting but still puts you under a good amount of pressure for pretty much the entire game) (should be said also i was playing on veteran difficulty)
4. Mission variety felt nice especially early on (you get to save civilians, raid some alien ships, and missions related to the cleaners that are unique)

CONS
1. The air combat is pretty boring (i used auto-resolve like 90% of the time) though I heard there is going to be an air rework at some point
2. Overwatch I think works pretty well but it takes a while to get used to (it is tied to reflexes and certain weapons like MGs to tend to have much more random spread than other weapons) The game could use a way to better show how effective over watch will be for a person considering how important it is.
3. The damage variation is a bit much, not to the point that it cant be worked around but its still noticable in certain situations (I have specifically run into this issue with laser weapons)
4. The late game felt a little short, as in I would want to spend more time on the alien planet before beating the game (hopefully this will get expanded in an update)

I got this game on a 35% sale (pretty sure it is discounted that much fairly often) and at $26 it is defiantly worth the money, maybe even worth full price if this is the main genre your interested in.

This is the true successor of UFO Defense from the 90s. Yes, it has some issues, still not finished. Basically a lot of the original stuff from UFO Defense is implemented here, but to a better degree. The same feeling of dread is there, difficulty can go crazy sometimes. Soldier types are good, some you could find in the old game through modding. Base building is simple, like in the old game.

10/10 as an indie game
01/10 as a production controlled by hooded horse.... recommend or reject?

These devs chose to be enslaved by one of THE WORST publishers as of late...

XCOM 2 is my favorite game of all time. It looks like XCOM 3 is never going to happen. I really tried to get into Xenonauts 2, the systems look like the exact thing I'd be into, but everything just feels flat and disjointed.

I'll come back on full release and update my review if I have a better experience, but so far I'm not optimistic.

If you like X-Com [Specifically UFO Defence and or TFTD] then you will like this. If you played the first Xenonauts and enjoyed it then this is that but better. The progression is better, there's more content, the engine is better - you can rotate the camera, the air combat is better, there's fewer bugs and this is all while it's still receiving pretty regular updates.

It can be frustrating as all hell but that's the nature of probability games. Remember: a 2% chance of something happening means it happens in 1/50 instances.

love the game so far, it is a very great step up from coming from the new xcom series to playing this.
its not overly complex, but at the same time you can still customise and change the squad depending on what firepower or equipment is fun to charge in with.
9/10 (always room for improvement)

The story is not bad 7/10 but the characters feel slightly lacking 4/10

Not fully out yet but it's still great fun, even if i miss two 99% in a row and frag a fellow squad mate, woulds stomp alien again. 10/10

Worth playing, fair and challenging on my level.

Running regular difficulty with ironman because you should, it makes the game better/quicker/different try it.

I've spent in game 150h , finished it 5 times to extend game gave me a possibility, including 2 times on Commander in Milestone 5 experimental , where the game is complete and is in polishing state.
Here is an honest review :
SHORT VERSION
If you like turned base games like Xcom - BUY IT , its 10 times better in every single manner

LONG VERSION
Combat system is taken from XCOM 90th and well transfered here , will lot of refinements . Its not an easy one to take on from the start , so you need to read a bit about stats , how it works and staff ; but once you get into it , you will never wish to come back to ugly ass run-shoot system from XCOM 2000th .

Difficulty is another thing , while XCOM from 2000 takes it easy on you , this game , the very way XCOM 90th did , will teraform your ass ; even if you play on easy.
Early game is brutal and you WILL LOSE your fighters , no matter what, if you are new to the game. Accept it , embrace it and get gut. You will prevail if you fight back hard enough.
This game does the very opposite of what XCOM 2000th does ; It starts INSAINLY HARD ,cause you are outmatched vs Aliens , and its LOGIC ,its fine. But as the game goes on and you catch on alien tech , your soldiers become Space Marines , you equal and surpass Aliens.
I love it. The more you advance the more tactical solutions the game will offer you to beat aliens. In return they will send you most hard enemies and in numbers to now test your true command ability and decision taking.

Graphics
Its not an AAA and thank god. Graphics are FINE , they are. The game about gameplay , not graphics but its a huge UP since Xeno 1 , so its fine to look at and nice to play with.

Balance in game
Its pretty good !
Weapons like you have ,all are usefull for each situation even at the very end game. Gear and weapons are done pefectly for thier roles so you can effectivly use 95% of gear game propose you.
As it is now , milestone 5.15 , only Colossus Armor needs a buff/fix , as its a piece of useless gear.
Aliens - really well balanced as well , but only the Cyberdrone and Medical Prob in 5.15 ; those 2 need a rebalance , as they are overpowered enemies to face.
Over balance wise it really is a good step up from Xeno 1

What I dont like in current state ?
Well , 2 major things :
1°Timed mission , I never liked them. But in this game , as I described you how difficulty scales , in early game they are brutal , in late game they are annoying.
2°Game falls off in content past mid game ; no more new tech , no more new difficulties from new aliens , new tasks - you continue to do very same missions until ENDGAME mission , which is really well made and really Hard on part 1 of it. But overall its all same maps and tasks with no variation.
May be this will be adressed in next milestone 5 and by modding community

Overall , you will enjoy a lot for you money , game is replayable , I'm on my 6th run today to seek for bugs and send them to devs to help them out.
I would say 8/10 game ; -2 points for downfall of content in a late game.

Unpolished and overpriced XCOM clone. Not recommendable in its current state.

Already having a lot of fun, despite the game not being finished

Beware, normal difficulty can actually feel challenging

X2 is a work in progress but it is great work. A true successor to the X-Com franchise. Support the devs as they make this game better and better.

The game was promised to be released no later than April 18, 2024.

This i just a bad copy of Xcome2, everything i worse in this game, just play xcome2 insted!!

A solid throwback to the days of the original X-Com games where defending the earth meant building up the global infrastructure to do so, instead of just upgrading a single base and dealing with a single mission at a time. The visual flair and punchy skill tree driven combat of the reboots will be missed, but fans of the genre will appreciate the more robust strategic layer.

Excellent. Played through on unfinished main branch and buggy beta branch. Enjoyed both a lot.

Been a long time since I played the original x-com games, but I would say the difficulty curve is smoother and there isn't a sense of dread.

Compared to x-com reboot, it is less cinematic and less immersive in some ways, but more interesting tactically. You think about battles in terms of the whole map, instead of a bunch of mini encounters. I prefer it.

Probably my favourite game of its genre.

Not too complex (Phoenix Point), not too simple (Xcom 2), based on Terror from the Deep.
Couldn't stop playing until I reached the "Finished all the available content!" message.

tl;dr play the Firaxis XCOM games instead.

A year and a half into early access and this game still has so far to go. Less than 10 hours in I've encountered 'placeholder' art and story for required plot missions. New enemies show up almost every mission but they lack meaningful variety/mechanics. Given the deep sales while still in EA I suspect it's not selling well and I'm speculating the remaining development will be haphazardly rushed to move the devs to more profitable ventures. Very glad I did not buy this at EA launch or for full price.

Gameplay
Combat mechanics seem ok; no major complaints outside enemy variety. Enemy overwatch mechanics seem poorly implemented but perhaps I'm not understanding the mechanic well. Facing direction is new to me mechanically--it adds a little thinking to positioning but the feature is mostly irrelevant. Soldier progression seems very poorly thought out (medals and rankings with minor stat bonuses? c'mon...numbers aren't fun). IMO the Firaxis XCOM games were much more fun; the RNG soldier class system and ability tree made each soldier unique. Additionally, I dearly miss the cinematic kill-cam.

Performance
Not good. Enemy turns are long and the game stutters something fierce when smoke is on the field. Despite the classic sprite appearance, the game is rendered in 3D. Game runs on Linux via Proton, but almost everything does nowadays so no bonus points.

This game has some good moments and at times a decent gameplay loop, but I can't recommend it in its current state, especially as a full-priced title. While this is still a review, I have put a few 'wishlist' style changes I'd like to see throughout it; despite my (at times) harsh tones, I love this kind of game and wish this game and its developers a successful 1.0 release. Regardless, My main criticisms are as follows:

1. Compared with other games of this genre, the difficulties are far harder than they let on. I'm struggling through my second playthrough on veteran (second hardest difficulty) while I've managed to beat pheonix point and Xcom 2 on legendary EASILY by comparison. This isn't a detractor for diehard fans of the genre, but WILL alienate more casual players.

2. Overwatch in tactical missions. This is an issue in other games of the genre as well, but it's ESPECIALLY bad here. Aliens, even from undisovered pods, will almost always be on overwatch beyond the early game, even on turn one, facing directly toward your landing area. There's also NO indicator showing if any given alien (or human, for that matter) is on overwatch, and if that alien has only a single overwatch attack, or several. Additionally, your own men's overwatch (which you can't really turn off beyond wasting time units) cause friendly fire an uncomfortably large amount of the time. The rules explaining how and when units will use overwatch are unclear and inconsistent, and NOTHING you can field is beefy enough to just face-tank through the worst of it unless you're VERY ahead in tech at that given point. One (partial) solution is smoke grenades (flashbangs can't usually be thrown far enough accurately to turn it off consistently), but they're REALLY risky and unintuitive to use:
Use them on your own units -> you're forced to move unless you've outfitted your entire squad with gas masks (or have T3 armor already) because stun will keep building from smoke inhalation.
Use them on enemy units -> congrats, you're never going to hit them until they either leave or you get really up close, which defeats the point.
use them on the space in between -> They're sorta inconsistent, and aliens still move around them on their next turn anyway, and you also can't shoot through it either, and moving through it later will still give stun effect.

2B) Damage rolling. While not a big issue in the earlygame, with how armour works, combats feel increasingly luck-based and inconsistent as the game progresses- attacks do 50 to 200% of their base damage on every hit, before armour An attack having a base of 50 damage against a unit with 60 hp and 20 armour could do anywhere between 5 damage (basically nothing), or 80 (oneshotting almost most biological soldiers even through T3 armour). Weapons having different damage ranges/spreads or even reducing the overall spread would do a tonne to make combats more fair and straightforward. The wild damage ranges makes the overwatch issue mentioned above even worse as you can't calculate your way through traversing a volley to allow your squad to move again.

3. The atmosphere of the game and the strategy layer in particular is underwhelming. Almost no voice acting, no cutscenes even for big events, and a lack of varied sound effects or music as the game progressed. Our chief of operations, head scientist and head of engineering don't even have their own names or backstories (that I've managed to find, anyway), which is a huge shame for the scientist especially, as he clearly has a personality he establishes over the game. Additionally, the storytelling around 'an asymmetrical war against the aliens' is DEEPLY confusing. You simultaneously have hidden bases, yet the governments of the world are somehow still funding you anyway while all their intelligence agencies have been compromised by alien sympathisers (light spoilers, my bad) from the dead start of the game? Whose side are the governments of the world on? If the threats are so pervasive, how are you able to just build bases anywhere and they'll almost never be attacked until the second half of the game, and only by aliens. Where is the Xenonaut support base coming from?

4. The air combat is also very unpolished and they admit as such when you do it for the first time. with a second-generation fighter (which I won't name for spoilers) armed with third tier weapons and second tier armour can't kill anything bigger than certain 'small' sized aircraft. Additionally, the interface implies you can send multiple fighters (which would definitely be helpful in using lots of weaker craft) after a single threat, but there's no proper explanation anywhere ingame on how to do this? This one is probably the most forgivable of all my criticisms thus far- maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Additionally, I built a LOT of missile/laser/redacted Defense batteries in my campaigns, and later found out these ONLY shoot at alien aircraft attacking your bases? If these could attack other alien craft passing by, I think that'd be both thematically awesome and make the air combat a lot more bearable.

5. A lot of the tactical level item choices and combinations are honestly just sort of boring, and the number of viable comps in the second half of the game is very low. Grenadiers are really weak as the game progresses and their tech up for explosives comes WAY too late. Further exacerbating their mediocrity, normal soldiers of other classes can carry a LOT of grenades by then. Could grenade launchers be made into a secondary so I can still use a rifle, shotgun or machine gun? Shields are honestly too strong in the earlygame and midgame if you get their T2 project done soon enough, but fall off rapidly after that. The MARS units are definitely very cool, but why can't I turn my men into Telepaths, cyborgs or super-mutants using alien tech? The restrictions on what can be used as primary and secondary weapons are also too strict for my liking- it also takes (in my opinion) far too many time units to move stuff around in inventory, so trying to cram out on held items and switching as needed in combat isn't usually viable either.

6. More minor issues. they're not a serious issue in the scheme of things, and will likely be fixed soon, but definitely make play on some maps maps deeply uncomfortable. Issues such as
Cyberdrone explosion on death feels almost unavoidable in the REDACTED, as the short corridoors and small rooms mean one in the center of a room is almost unavoidable damage, especially if you use shorter- ranged compositions (you'd be an idiot to do a long-ranged one in there anyway)
Why do really thin boreal trees provide 100% (perfect) cover as good as brick or metal walls? Cover in general feels like it's too generously applied when shooting through various non-straight general angles.
Why can't I move units through each other, to the point it adds massive amounts of time units in moving a formation UNLESS you move them all in a very specific order? since you lose additional time units for making turns, a unit may need to turn THREE times to get around one guy, which often loses you 10+ time units for what should have been a 2-3 block, 5-7 time unit move. This isn't a huge issue by itself, but if someone gets suppressed, panics or otherwises loses their remaining turn unexpectedly, it can cause a doorway to be shut for an entire turn as the person you can't move through now can't move at all.

While I may have more to learn about this game, I can't recommend it right now. I WILL update this review as more content, bug fixes and rebalancing comes available. I have high hopes for the team working on it and this game by 1.0 Release, however far away that is. Thanks for reading my review!

An absolutely amazing sequel to an equally amazing game. This has improved on the XCOM formula in almost every way and is arguably better than even XCOM 2.

This cover system is so stupid???
Can't shoot from behind a wall?