Xenonauts 2

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.

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?

I like killing aliens








But seriously, even in the early access state, this game delivers. I'm excited to see it continue to be refined and polished, and the latest experimental branch release only cements my hopes.

Passed the dollar per hour ratio easily. For those who enjoyed the first, you will also enjoy this one- the balancing and progression feels a lot better in the second game compared to the first.

This game will cheat. You will miss hit chance to hit shots, regardless if taken multiple times. Your soldiers will die from a stiff breeze. Enemies will spawn right next to you when you start the mission and WILL kill you the from the word Go. You will always be at a disadvantage unless the games director decides suddenly that the aliens are eating glue in the corner levels of dumb and easy.

You think I'm being dramatic?
Half cover walls are -40% accuracy when shooting over it from as far a one tile away from it, while the aliens you weren't targeting, and that you can't see hidden in the fog of war, can head shot your soldiers perfectly every time.
Your soldiers will miss several shots on the SAME enemy whose standing in the middle of an open field, but that same enemy on the AIs turn will kill one of your soldiers with ease. Oh and then an enemy you can't see because of the fog of war will follow up on their turn by ONCE AGAIN blowing the head off another solider.
Med kits can only be used ONCE per soldier, meaning they can only be healed once per mission.
Enemies WILL destroy your cover with a few shots, but your nerf gun bullets will bounce harmlessly off the walls.
Enemies have a MUCH wider field of vision than you, and they WILL shot you from areas that your sniper in a raised advantage point, with upgraded weapon and sights, can't see and cant target.
Enemies will charge you, and your soldier will full movement point, who should be on overwatch, will do NOTHING to stop them. While if your soldiers stick so much as a pinkie toe from behind cover then aliens will overwatch your position EVERYTIME and get free shots off.
Miss a shot or took a shot? aliens get a free reaction shot on you. Aliens shoot you or miss you? Your soldiers will stand around with a thumb up their ass as they die. You hit an alien with gun fire and a grenade? They will laugh it off and charge you. Your soldier with multiple missions and dozens of confirmed kills gets a splinter? They go crazy and shoot and destroy the life saving cover of their nearby teammate WHO THEN GETS KILLED BY AN ENEMY YOU CAN'T SEE!

The game punishes you for playing it. Save scumming is a MUST. And NPC civilians on the map will get more kills then your hand picked, best of the best, special forces soldiers.

Its like playing the first Xcom remake all over again. And I loved that game, and its broken mechanics, while this game just pisses me off. I keep coming back to this game to try it again and again, but I can't stick with it for long because it just pisses me off so much with its poorly explained mechanics, and obviously cheating AI that makes it that you HAVE to save scum to even have a hope of winning.

I had to start the same mission over again several times because the game INSISTED on having an alien right next to my deployment zone that would immediately one shot whoever I sent out first.

Kinda boring. The story is a little too 'basic' to draw me in. Still lots of basic bugs, like not being able to click on the data from computers in the cleaner missions makes it unplayable for me.

I just stopped playing. :(

Fantastic. This in XCom reborn. Original XCom but better! I can hardly wait to see what else they do with this.

Old fashioned tactical game bought up to date with great game play that really challenges the brain.

Great game with a lot of challenges, its still early access but the developers are really trying to work hard to fix issues and complete the game.
Still in its uncompleted state its a good challenge and has a lot of content.

I love Xcom and this is a lot like that game. It's a little different but, I love this game so far.

Good game

As i have reached the point of story roadblock, i am gona chill with the game now. As for now, it feels like very refined experience of Xenonauts, improved in almost every way. However, will wait with full review on the release.

alot of fun, kinda balls to the wall at times, but i wont lie it makes alot of auto saves, which i think is a beautiful use of the multiverse xD i mean if they gonna invade us from the multiverse, i may from time to time, swap to a reality i didnt just flash bang my whole team, and try a differnt thing xD 10/10 its a cleaver use of quantum mechincs

they need to start thinking not just puting in numbers, oh yeah and they introduced loaded dice. cant turn it off either ofc. the new system forces you to take aliens alive on first contact, while giving you 2 weapons specifically designed to do it that both combined do as much as SMOKE each turn for 3-4 turns if you lucky.

Yes smoke practically impossible to missthrow, stuns on first contact and FIXED amount each turn. STUN baton does half IN MELEE with 50%-ish chance (loaded die btw), and oh you get a stun gun 70% chance !!! IN MELEE MAYBE (and also loaded die) maybe modder can take that crap out.
Ah yeah im not sure after i saw it how bad it is, but in this 2 at least bullets once calculated it WILL miss, THEN it calculates a path that HAS to miss the target, this makes the bullet FORCED to some angles that you just scratch your head, like wtf?!

ah yeah, and locals kill off your aliens that you try to capture so you kinda forced to kill the locals to stop doing that.... unless you wanna run up to them and talk to them, you know they always nice and reachable inside 3 aliens target reticle.

I have played the first Xenonauts both vanilla and Community Enhanced edition and liked them vey much.
For this iteration, I have been playing and experimenting with updates since the closed beta days before the release of Milestone 1. I love the latest experimental branch, you can feel the game is heading towards its final production stages, and feels nice and good overall.

Now that I see this game resistance against fascism, i love it even more.

Wish this game was multiplayer, would be fun as hell to play with my brother.

Tough, unforgiving, and tense. Its one where I super care about making every hit count. Where every new enemy is a scary challenge. Where even if you think you are about to cross a hill, the next mission one shots half your team.

Love it. Didn't play Xenonauts 1, so not comparing. Sure, genre is XCOM, but the feel, the tension, the play is so much more exciting.

How can you win in this game, you don't have the money to build new bases, your aircraft don't have the range to intercept out side your area. All your troops cant help you unless a mission comes up. So i just watch the US and Russia surrender and that means no matter how strong or ahead i am i automaticly lose.

This absolutely scratches the XCOM itch. The care that has been put into this is clear to see and I've been really enjoying it so far!

Good game, especially if you can get it at a discount! Assault and Heavy by far are the best two classes for your team. Sniper is okay, better at end game, Rifleman are the worst class and Shield is okayish for punching bag until you can get the vehicles to help. While this game is still not finished I'd highly suggest balancing out the builds better upgrading Rifleman and Grenade launcher and Snipers. Aerial battle is key to this game. It's very important to knock UFOs out and keep them from increasing your "panic level" in countries. After your aerial is better, then focus on your ground/troop upgrades, but always upgrade aerial first if there is a possibility. Your guys on the ground will be cannon fodder especially at the start of the game, so don't worry about save-scumming and just enlist more. Overall fun game, looking forward to the complete build, and I have enjoyed the beta experimental unstable build thus far great improvements. I would suggest more detail with the aerial fights as well.

- SWEET BABY INC DETECTED -

☑️ No
🔲 Yes
🔲 Massively here

- DIFFICULTY -

🔲 My 95 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
☑️ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 "Dark Souls"

- GRAPHICS -

☑️ "MS Paint"
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

- MUSIC -

🔲 Bad
☑️ Not special
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful

- STORY -

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing "Temple Runners" for the story
☑️ It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Umm Good?
🔲 Well written
🔲 Epic story

- PRICE -

🔲 It's Free
🔲 Underpriced
☑️ Perfect price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

- REQUIREMENTS -

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Potato
🔲 Average
☑️ High end
🔲 "NASA" computer

- LENGTH -

🔲 Very short (0 - 3 hours)
🔲 Short (3 - 15 hours)
☑️ Average (15 - 50 hours)
🔲 Long (50 - 90 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (90 - 110 hours)
🔲 More than 1 week (170+)
🔲 No ending

- FUN -

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
☑️ Actually pretty amusing
🔲 Ride of your life

- REPLAYABILITY -

🔲 It's a one - time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
☑️ If you wait a few months / years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

- WORTH BUYING -
🔲 It's Free
🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
☑️ Yes


[quote=]

GAMES I HAVE PLAYED

If you liked the original Xenonauts, this game is a vast Alien improvement. Aliens will attempt actual tactics against your squad, and make use of things like lighting/shadow and grenades.

I was happy with this before.. but something about the latest version (playing experimental branch) just does it for me. The new strategic options- the new start- the missions. Looking forward to polish & the rest!

Don't particularly mind the wait either.

Lovely game. It's like the first X-COM's which I loved to play! The plot isn't completely finished yet, and maybe some stuff needs tweaking, but I only played the normal difficulty level so far. I will definitely replay this once it's completely done. I read a few comments on fora about differentiating the properties of the weapons in the research tiers and I think that's a valid point. And there are a couple more things I'm curious about how they will turn out in the final version. But so far it's been a blast playing.

Lots of improvements from XN1, I love it! I wish there was a bit more map variety tho, im starting to recognize the same maps every third mission or so. Otherwise, I can't wait for the air combat to be revamped as well!

fantastic x com type game old school and superb!

A love letter to X-COM, permadeath with updated graphics and TLC paid to the best parts of that game.

Good game, but it's impossible to play - saving, loading, or ending a turn results in an error message or just crashes the game without any notification 50% of the time.

How could you even release such software? Did you test it yourselves? Please fix this as soon as possible. In my opinion, this is far more important than continuing work on the game's storyline.

Exactly what I wanted and expected. It's old school xcom with it's own twist. combat is good and also unforgiving. It took along time playing these types of games to learn power of 1 mistake and carry that forward. I used to play and save and reload till my squad was a power house. However to run a game in ironman mode and let you take them mistakes to the team well that's anther thing all together. I've lost good people in my games a few to my mistakes but others to good RnG. highly recommend to any turn based fan and a must for xcom fans.

Shows glipses of quality but needs a lot more work before enjoyable

Nice game, played the first one and started now the second. So far so good. Only minus of the game is the music which is awful. But you can have playing on the backround music from XCOM 1 and change it to geosphere music and combat music and it will work fine. Please do something about the music guys. Also WTF with the girl boss director XD ...

The Spiritual Successor to XCOM: UFO Defense
(Review of Milestone 4. WARNING: This game is not complete, but still awesome!)

If you like the original XCOM: UFO Defense, but thought it was a little too 'guide dang it', then this game is for you!

There are tons of quality of life improvements, like infinite flares for night missions, scientists that generate money for you when there is nothing to research, and predictive accuracy for when you want to know your chances for running to a new spot and taking a snap shot at an alien.

The game is basically 3 incredible layers.

First, the base-management potatoes, where you strategically allocate resources and make the nail-biting choice between improving your weapons, armor, technology, economy, or aircraft. You'll spend hours lamenting your choice of placing the training center next to the hanger when it CLEARLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ADJACENT TO THE LIVING QUARTERS.

Second, the air-combat gravy. It's got missiles, autocannons, torpedoes? Yeah! SPACE TORPEDOES!

Finally, the prime rib, wagyu, tomahawk, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, whatever meat metaphor you prefer, turn-based and tactical shooter. Hooooo boyyyy! This game is so fun you won't even remember to save scum because you clicked the wrong button. Well, you might remember to save scum, because you meant to throw that grenade at the grouped up aliens, but it banked off of the door frame and now, guess who's getting chewed out when you get back to base because you have to explain to chain of command why your squad is missing three of your colonel level soldiers.

It was aliens. And grenades. And maybe Johnson was mind-controlled. I think it was Clauswitz who said things get foggy when you're spamming smoke grenades to stay alive and I can't be held accountable for every piece of ordinance I stuff into my over-filled backpack. Look, it doesn't matter anyways because we brought back SPACE METAL that you can USE to make your weapons and armor more SPACE METAL.

Or perhaps you should save that Alenium for air superiority? Strange crop circles have been appearing in the rural areas and the UFOs are getting faster...

The music? Ominous, foreboding. Like Beethoven put tin foil on all his windows so he could escape the cosmic rays that were melting his brain before composing a masterpiece.

The controls? Precise, responsive. Take as much or as little time as you want, the game is turn-based and patient or as fast as a kid with ADHD trying to scramble and hide all the marshmallows he took out of the Cap'N Crunch's Galactic Crunch cereal this morning so he could have a bowl of concentrated sugar.

The terrain? Destructible, betraying. Ask me what happens when three of your soldiers take cover behind a car and the aliens get brand new weapons.

The aliens? Dangerous, unforgiving. With more plasma and mind control than your weird uncle who knows all about chemtrails and adrenochrome.

So buy this game, the devs have been working hard on it, and when they're done, it may just be better than XCOM: UFO Defense, forgive my potential blasphemy, scions of Gallop.

May your soldiers never be over extended and forget to reload.
May there always be cover to crouch behind.
May your enemies wander aimlessly into your overwatch.

Great game already! Sadly after roughly 10-15 hours you reach the current extend of the plot (Update 4). Looking forward to more!

While this game is in early access and some images are placeholders. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY disapprove of the use of AI for placeholder images. How do you expect me to believe you're making something on the up and up and not cutting corners when you find the need to use shitty plagiarism machines for placeholder images and expect people to not notice or care. Just use a blank image, or a stick drawing you made with your own two hands. I fully do not believe every piece of art work was handcrafted now, and thats entirely the development team's fault for making use of AI for something as simple as a placeholder. This was written as of 5.5.0 Experimental build on 1/6/2025, and you can see the AI placeholder images in the new "Supporter" system they just added. Also lol. the gall to make it so Africa/middle east doesnt have a Special supporter that has extra benefits.

I loved the first game, and this is essentially an upgrade on that in every way.

At first, I wasnt sure I liked the changes from the first game. But after 3 hours, Its won me over.

Its about 10% going toward XCOM away from the UFO we all know and love, but its actually a 10% that I'm in favour of. Its doing its best to get rid of the tedious admin but leave in the admin that was quite enjoyable.

So yea, the combat feels fairly the same which was really important.

One thing I LOVE is some of the special missions have crazy goals in them now. This is absolutely brilliant fun. Favourite one so far is doing an ambush on their convoy! So much fun having a turn of just blasting them!

Anyway, 3 hours in and I'm hungry to play more. Says it all.
If you like UFO and the first one.. its a no brainer must buy

Fun game but it has unfair scaling of health and damage from enemies and I hate losing units right when I send them out of the drop ship just to get one tapped by a alien that was out of sight next to my ship. There is no ending currently, AI isn't very smart I mostly lost troops to reaction shots that seem unfair. Heavy weapons and snipers suck! Running shotguns and rifles seem to only route as the cost to fire them is to high and has them just sitting for most of the op just to miss a 80% shot and having to reload afterward is just a waste of a slot but having a colossus suit for heavy is a improvement its a shame you cant use and modules with them. I wouldn't buy this game in it's current state.

great change of pace if you feel that XCOM 2 is getting old

I would recommend, but I have a few issues with this game. I'm a 43 year old guy who played a lot of time-based games, such the old UFO games, Jagged Alliance, Phoenix Point, the new UFO games etc.

This game tries to stay true to the classic UFO game and it does so quite well, but having all these newer games does make this game feel it's lacking, especially in the combat phases. There's no prown for instance, just kneel down. Also it doesn't show how many TU's it costs to move, just to shoot. I also think you should be able to point at legs/torso/head. These are I think necesary improvements while still being true to the old games.

Then, it's also way too hard. I'm playing this on 'soldier' difficulty, which is one step more difficult than the easiest. The evolution of alien's is way too fast compared to what you can research. After just 3 months you'll find yourself underequiped against mighty enemy's, making it mandatory to keep saving/loading to save a few of your soldiers.

Research is way too slow to keep up with this technology. Then there's the matter of monthly income becoming lower and lower when you're really doing everything you can to expand your bases and get good coverage with your interceptors. After 3-4 months the UFO's become too strong to take them down. The panic level of continents is rising way too fast.

I find this strange. When they are clearly trying to stay true to the classic game, they force a ridicolous speed of evolution which is near impossible. To make matters worse, when you are already struggling to keep up, due to higher panic levels (which is almost impossible to decrease) they lower your income, making it even harder.

Right now i'm contemplating quiting. I now have to defend my base when most of my team is on a mission, using 3 underequiped soldiers and 2 defense platforms which break so damn fast.

This game is in need of heavy re-balancing. It feels like it hasn't really been thourougly tested by the devs.

The game is enough to give you that XCOM itch, but not enough to scratch it (i am going to play some XCOM now, i advise you to do the same).

Even for EA (this review was done at EA milestone 4) this is very rough, nothing like an XCOM clone where the UFOs stop spawning :(

I loved it. I've gone as far as milestone 5, and I'm very anxious for the next updates to come so I can finish the story.

The major downside is that it´s still in development - I still hasn't gotten why they are selling it on Steam like it's a finished game. However, until now I didn't have any major issues with bugs, crashes, glitches or anything: it is truly playable.

(I´m writing this review as I wait for the update containing milestone 5 is being downloaded :D)

As for the game itself, it's great: it is challenging (I mean that as a compliment), the story is good, you always need to think well before you make any major decisions and sometimes you will get f***** by the aliens.

If it´s on sale, go ahead and buy it, you won´t regret it.