First off, not trying to say this game is bad. Its actually quite good in my opinion. I've had fun playing it, and there are no major flaws that I have come across with it. It does have its flaws however, and I can see why some people will hate this game. I say hold off on buying it for a couple reasons.

First is that its crazy short for an XCOM game. There are only 6, yes SIX story missions. I am just about to start the final mission, and my play time is roughly 9 hours. Now granted that is fine for some of you. But I have also completed 100% of everything thus far. All side missions, etc. The game is very liner also. You don't make any choices. You can't fail anything. You don't chose this over that. Its not like a traditional XCOM game in any of those regards. So that brings me to my second point.

There is no replay value in this game. Once you beat it, you have no reason to go back and play it again. There is nothing to collect. No other path to take. Nothing you could have done differently. So I don't feel this game is worth the $60 price point. I feel kinda bummed that I bought it day one to be honest. But that might be my own fault for getting so excited thinking this was an Enemy Unknown meets Mass Effect. Which is how I felt the first few hours. But then once you realize that it doesn't have any of the great deep mechanics and features that either of those have, it starts to fall flat. And then it just doesn't go anywhere. And then all the sudden the game is telling you "hey you are about to go past the point of no return". And you stop and think, what? Really? Nothing has even really happened yet. I went here, did that. Then did this. And now you are telling me that it? It is the end game already? Uh. okay.

In my opinion this game is great at $30 or less. I would recommend waiting for Alex's review to popup in the next couple days. There are some things I am pretty sure he will talk about, the flaws and issues. So I wont include those here. I feel like this game was rushed. And then I remember it was actually pushed back and had an extra year of work. And then I think, what happened in that year? What exactly where they doing? Its almost like they cut over half the game out. Either that or they had all these great grand ideas, and then just never did anything with them. Which is a real shame. This game could have been something great.

Sounds like a fine 20 dollar downloadable game somebody tried to sell people for 60 bucks (and succeeded)..

They probably have to make at least some of the money they spent on this thing over the years back.

aren't there diverging paths for skill trees? like, can't you build yourself and your team-mates differently for a second playthrough? on a higher difficulty? that's usually all i want out of a replay.

I'll be getting it at half price then. Not paying full price for such a short game.

Very helpful thread, thanks for the pointers.

Three stars.

But it's not an "XCOM game", right? I think it never tried to be one. It has always been a real-time shooter, in some form or another. It's a spinoff, not a traditional XCOM strategy game, so holding that against it as a bit unfair.

One word Rental

Agreed.

I really thought that's what this was for a long time I saw it selling on Steam for about full price.

ayessir

Yes, you do have diverging skill trees. But its only 5 levels per member. And 10 for you. So you will see both sides of the recruits trees in one playthrough. And you only make two choices per recruit. And you can only have two of each type that you recruit actively. The others are added by doing side missions. You also level up your guys by sending them on their own missions ala Assassins Creed Brotherhood. So you will be able to swap your guys and see both sides of their choices in a couple of missions.

You also only make four (maybe five) choices for yourself. And its nothing worth going back for. Its things like, my droid skill will have either healing or attack beams. My blob thing (forgot the name) will last longer or do more damage. Its pretty weak stuff. Its not actual skills for you that are different. They are different modifiers for skills prior.

Yes and no. It IS an XCOM game. Its just a different type of XCOM game. And I didn't expect it to be Enemy Unknown, or any thing like that. Hell, its short for any kind of game these days. And short is okay depending on how its executed, handled. This game makes you think the entire time that more is coming. That there is just more around the corner. And then, there just isn't.

Wait for the inevitable bargain bin price, sounds like it has that written all over it.

Turns out there was two missions after the one they played up as being the last. So it has Eight story missions, and will take you 10-11 hours to do everything. So not as bad as initially thought. But I still stick to the not worth $60.

Sooo.... $15 on steam by the time the holiday sale rolls around?

@outside_potty_machine: I don't even consider this an xcom game...

@arbitrarywater: Yes indeed.

To be honest, that's pretty much what this game seems like. I dunno, there's just something about the interface and the way it plays that suggests that it was, at some point, an expensive XBLA game. In fact, I only recently found out that this was a full priced game. XD

@outside_potty_machine: I ended up buying the game because I had store credit so I didn't actually pay any real money. Hour counts in games don't bother me as long as the experience is good. Is the story good? and is the game fun to play?

I made the mistake of pre-ordering after the Quick Look EX. Bummer. Should have bought Splinter Cell instead.

@outside_potty_machine: What difficulty did you go for? I find with the permadeath on It takes me about an hour for each story mission and 20 for the side ones.

All this money talk this week is very interesting.

If you duders think this game is worth $20 bucks, what do you think about Gone Home?

I would be thrilled to pay 20 dollars for this game when it reaches that price; and it probably will fairly quickly.

@pompouspizza: For the price you paid you should enjoy it for what it is. Its not terrible by any means. Its just not great. Its fun until half way through when you realize this is it, and its just been repeating itself for every mission.

I went with the default one. I never lost a guy though. The entire campaign. My longest mission was about an hour and half. Because it got hard as balls and I had to take it very slow to ensure I was not going to lose anyone. But not hard in a fun kinda challenging way. Hard in a overwhelmed way. Where the next wave was coming before the last was defeated.