Overall, Invisible INC is a well-polished indie title, with intricate gameplay mechanics, fast-paced menus, short load times, quality music that adapts to your circumstances in the level, great visuals, decent voice-acting. At twenty hours in, I feel like the $1/hour price tag has been well worth it.

I would imagine a lot of the negative reviews came from players whose strategies weren't working out, and they blamed the game for being "poorly-designed" rather than changing their tactics. Like many rouge-likes, this game doesn't hold your hand, the tutorial was very minimal, the only way to understand effective strategies is try them out and adapt your approach based on your failures. There is also some game knowledge required to build an effective run (I'm reminded of the flagship fight in FTL--you're not expected to beat it the first time you reach it; it's supposed to feel overwhelming). I found that process of discovery and adaptation very rewarding. My heart rate went through the roof the first time I played the final mission.

For what it's worth, there is a built-in "save-scum" feature (basically an "undo your last turn" feature) that has limited uses per run, and the number of uses decreases as you increase the difficulty. Some might scoff at this, but I actually appreciated it and felt like it was a fair inclusion. It really helps speed up the learning process. On the beginning difficulty settings, if you try something that doesn't work and your agents die, you can just restart the turn, rather than having to restart the entire playthrough.

This game feels hugely underrated. The engine and game play mechanics have so much potential, I wish more developers would integrate Invisible Inc.'s stealth concepts into their games. Fans of turn-based strategy and rouge-likes should both be able to find something enjoyable here.