Okay so i have finally gotten around to reviewing this game after countless play-through's, over a thousand hours and more than a few 97 percent chance misses.

First, the good:

One of the big reasons i come back to this game time and time again is because of the gameplay. Pretty much every aspect of this game is satisfying, whether its early in the game or late every single kill feels satisfying (except maybe when it comes to the lost)

From the research options to the base building to customising and promoting your soldiers, its all heavily satisfying with accompanying deeply satisfying sound effects for finishing building things and such. This might seems like a weird point to hone in on but for my autistic brain these things just grease the meat jelly between my ears like nothing else.

The enemy forces feel well rounded and plentiful enough, especially if you have the DLC, that you wont quickly get bored of the variety, this accompanied with the elite versions of earlier enemies making sure to keep a steady challenge throughout makes the pacing of the game feel pretty much perfect. You can assure that your first few play-through's at the very least will maintain a steady challenge that may even sometimes border on frustrating if you make some errors.

For the most part the class diversity is vastly improved from the previous game with there being a much larger emphasis on class abilities with every single class tree feeling unique and each ability having a much more significant impact rather than XCOM: EW's tendancy to have some abilities simply be minor passives rather than anything that truly changes how a class plays. Each class also has a much greater disparity between each side of the tree for example the sharpshooter has a sniper side and a gun-slinging side which will dramatically change how the class plays in the late game from a long range Dead-shot that shoots anything that moves to a gun-slinging cowboy that can get a ludicrous amount of shots off on a single target at close range.

The story is a little bland in places and certainly lack-luster in length with there only being a handful of priority missions, though what the game lacks in plot structure it makes up for in world building. Whilst the plot may seem a little rushed and lack-luster the world always has the right feel. Whether its Bradford complaining about advent burger wrappers or the speaker giving propaganda speeches at the end of your missions to downplay the absolute massacre you just unleashed upon the alien menace the game never fails to make you really feel like you're living on an occupied earth.

Finally for the good, i have to say that firaxis are one of the few developers in todays gaming world that carries on the spirit behind paid expansions. Whilst their earlier Dlc's were quite disappointing for their price point, even they added in my opinion a fair amount of content with the alien rulers being one of the few things that can still cause me to start leaking sweat out of every pour on my body. But where this game really shines is with its War Of The Chosen expansion, this DRAMATICALLY changes the game and almost entirely for the better. The chosen are 3 of the aliens greatest warriors each tasked with personally ending your resistance each with their own abilities and weapons that can cause different levels of havoc on your poor little squad. Along side these however come 3 new hero classes each of which have an interesting backstory and lore as well as some pretty cool abilities, even if some are much better than others, with my personal favourites being the Templar.

Some extra quality of life improvements such as adding exhaustion to your soldiers stopping you from just running the same 6 soldiers again and again and again which sounds like an annoying restriction which at times it can be but realistically it adds much more depth to the tactical layer as it forces you to swap out your soldiers, it also has the handy effect of stopping you from building one singular team of bad-asses that carry your entire resistance which promptly goes to ♥♥♥♥ as soon as you lose a few of them and have to supplement with squaddies.

Covert ops, whilst a little bit disappointing, are a fun mechanic that can allow you to bolster your ranks with high level soldiers, additional hero members, resources and pretty much anything else you can think of. Resistance orders also add just a little bit of extra depth to the game as well as that extra step needed to really break the barriers of the game and gain some ludicrous synergies with your breakthrough researches and regional bonuses.

The only problem i have with the expansion is the addition of the lost. Initially an interesting concept these zombies tend to just become a boring chore after a little while as they clutter the combat and force you to spend turn after turn mowing down their hordes. On the plus side you can get ridiculous kill counts of 100+ in a single mission thanks to the sheer amount of bodies they throw at you.

Okay but enough shilling for this game, time to get to some of the real issues:

This game never really got over the bugginess. I will say the game is fairly stable but there are some issues such as regular slow downs during overwatch shots and just in general random pauses whilst the AI stare off into the distance before deciding what to do. I wouldnt say any of the bugs ive encountered thus far are game breaking, just somewhat annoyances that get in the way of a truly smooth experience usually breaking the flow of the game.

The game can lose a lot of the challenge in the later half once you know what you're doing eventually getting to a point where you will struggle to lose even if you're trying to. Which is kind of the reward for suffering through the game until that point but for some it can be an issue that stops them from pushing to the end, i personally have never actually beaten this game because i take my time with the research and by the time i get to the last few missions im so brokenly overpowered i struggle to motivate myself to keep playing and inevitably restart to feel the pain once again.

Whilst not an issue with the game itself the new launcher has caused many many people issues, personally ive had no real issues with it and have had a pretty smooth experience launching the game, as for modding i cant speak to that as i've always used the "Alternative mod launcher" when using mods for this game (which i highly recommend both modding and using AML, it makes diognosing conflicts SO much easier)

In conclusion. First of all if you read this entire review i commend your effort, i have been hesitant to review this game because i knew i'd waffle on for longer than is acceptable because i could talk about this game for hours and hours. This game is incredibly fun if you enjoy tactical strategy games. It can be absolutely glorious when you set up the perfect plan and execute it flawlessly. It can also be frustratingly hilarious when those plans go to absolute crap because your sniper missed a 95 percent chance to hit.

I cant recommend this game enough, especially if its on sale as the price becomes so low its had to justify not buying it. I would recommend that at this point you should probably buy the game with the DLC and play with all the DLC from the get go. None of the DLC requires prior experience to conquer (i bought the game with all its DLC and never ran into issues) and make sure you immediately go to the audio section and change your music to the UFO: Defense soundtrack because that soundtrack is glorious and will pump you up more than you can imagine.

For all the future commanders yet to play this game... goodluck. Send those aliens back to their home planet kicking and screaming. I salute you. o7

Okay so i have finally gotten around to reviewing this game after countless play-through's, over a thousand hours and more than a few 97 percent chance misses. First, the good: One of the big reasons i come back to this game time and time again is because of the gameplay. Pretty much every aspect of this game is satisfying, whether its early in the game or late every single kill feels satisfying (except maybe when it comes to the lost) From the research options to the base building to customising and promoting your soldiers, its all heavily satisfying with accompanying deeply satisfying sound effects for finishing building things and such. This might seems like a weird point to hone in on but for my autistic brain these things just grease the meat jelly between my ears like nothing else. The enemy forces feel well rounded and plentiful enough, especially if you have the DLC, that you wont quickly get bored of the variety, this accompanied with the elite versions of earlier enemies making sure to keep a steady challenge throughout makes the pacing of the game feel pretty much perfect. You can assure that your first few play-through's at the very least will maintain a steady challenge that may even sometimes border on frustrating if you make some errors. For the most part the class diversity is vastly improved from the previous game with there being a much larger emphasis on class abilities with every single class tree feeling unique and each ability having a much more significant impact rather than XCOM: EW's tendancy to have some abilities simply be minor passives rather than anything that truly changes how a class plays. Each class also has a much greater disparity between each side of the tree for example the sharpshooter has a sniper side and a gun-slinging side which will dramatically change how the class plays in the late game from a long range Dead-shot that shoots anything that moves to a gun-slinging cowboy that can get a ludicrous amount of shots off on a single target at close range. The story is a little bland in places and certainly lack-luster in length with there only being a handful of priority missions, though what the game lacks in plot structure it makes up for in world building. Whilst the plot may seem a little rushed and lack-luster the world always has the right feel. Whether its Bradford complaining about advent burger wrappers or the speaker giving propaganda speeches at the end of your missions to downplay the absolute massacre you just unleashed upon the alien menace the game never fails to make you really feel like you're living on an occupied earth. Finally for the good, i have to say that firaxis are one of the few developers in todays gaming world that carries on the spirit behind paid expansions. Whilst their earlier Dlc's were quite disappointing for their price point, even they added in my opinion a fair amount of content with the alien rulers being one of the few things that can still cause me to start leaking sweat out of every pour on my body. But where this game really shines is with its War Of The Chosen expansion, this DRAMATICALLY changes the game and almost entirely for the better. The chosen are 3 of the aliens greatest warriors each tasked with personally ending your resistance each with their own abilities and weapons that can cause different levels of havoc on your poor little squad. Along side these however come 3 new hero classes each of which have an interesting backstory and lore as well as some pretty cool abilities, even if some are much better than others, with my personal favourites being the Templar. Some extra quality of life improvements such as adding exhaustion to your soldiers stopping you from just running the same 6 soldiers again and again and again which sounds like an annoying restriction which at times it can be but realistically it adds much more depth to the tactical layer as it forces you to swap out your soldiers, it also has the handy effect of stopping you from building one singular team of bad-asses that carry your entire resistance which promptly goes to shit as soon as you lose a few of them and have to supplement with squaddies. Covert ops, whilst a little bit disappointing, are a fun mechanic that can allow you to bolster your ranks with high level soldiers, additional hero members, resources and pretty much anything else you can think of. Resistance orders also add just a little bit of extra depth to the game as well as that extra step needed to really break the barriers of the game and gain some ludicrous synergies with your breakthrough researches and regional bonuses. The only problem i have with the expansion is the addition of the lost. Initially an interesting concept these zombies tend to just become a boring chore after a little while as they clutter the combat and force you to spend turn after turn mowing down their hordes. On the plus side you can get ridiculous kill counts of 100+ in a single mission thanks to the sheer amount of bodies they throw at you. Okay but enough shilling for this game, time to get to some of the real issues: This game never really got over the bugginess. I will say the game is fairly stable but there are some issues such as regular slow downs during overwatch shots and just in general random pauses whilst the AI stare off into the distance before deciding what to do. I wouldnt say any of the bugs ive encountered thus far are game breaking, just somewhat annoyances that get in the way of a truly smooth experience usually breaking the flow of the game. The game can lose a lot of the challenge in the later half once you know what you're doing eventually getting to a point where you will struggle to lose even if you're trying to. Which is kind of the reward for suffering through the game until that point but for some it can be an issue that stops them from pushing to the end, i personally have never actually beaten this game because i take my time with the research and by the time i get to the last few missions im so brokenly overpowered i struggle to motivate myself to keep playing and inevitably restart to feel the pain once again. Whilst not an issue with the game itself the new launcher has caused many many people issues, personally ive had no real issues with it and have had a pretty smooth experience launching the game, as for modding i cant speak to that as i've always used the "Alternative mod launcher" when using mods for this game (which i highly recommend both modding and using AML, it makes diognosing conflicts SO much easier) In conclusion. First of all if you read this entire review i commend your effort, i have been hesitant to review this game because i knew i'd waffle on for longer than is acceptable because i could talk about this game for hours and hours. This game is incredibly fun if you enjoy tactical strategy games. It can be absolutely glorious when you set up the perfect plan and execute it flawlessly. It can also be frustratingly hilarious when those plans go to absolute crap because your sniper missed a 95 percent chance to hit. I cant recommend this game enough, especially if its on sale as the price becomes so low its had to justify not buying it. I would recommend that at this point you should probably buy the game with the DLC and play with all the DLC from the get go. None of the DLC requires prior experience to conquer (i bought the game with all its DLC and never ran into issues) and make sure you immediately go to the audio section and change your music to the UFO: Defense soundtrack because that soundtrack is glorious and will pump you up more than you can imagine. For all the future commanders yet to play this game... goodluck. Send those aliens back to their home planet kicking and screaming. I salute you. o7