The game is billed as a "re-imagining of the classic tale of humanity's struggle against an unknown enemy." The press release also gives a nod to the series' turn-based strategy past with the following line...
XCOM combines the strategic core of the groundbreaking franchise with a suspense-filled narrative and distills it into a tense and unique first-person shooter experience.
Players will take on the role of an FBI agent. Meanwhile, I'm reminded of Midway's awful Area 51 reboot, for some reason. That turned the goofy (but popular) light-gun game into a "dark" and "conspiracy-filled" first-person shooter.
Rumors of a new X-Com game have been swirling around for quite some time now, but it's always been Ken Levine and the recently re-re-christened Irrational Games that has been attached to that loose talk, not 2K Marin. Plus, the thing that made X-Com stand out in the first place was its gameplay. It's been a great turn-based strategy game. But it's not like the world itself is notable enough to immediately translate as a shooter. This just feels like it's using the name as shorthand for "there will be aliens." Guess we'll have to wait and see how that "strategic core" is distilled.