I'm only a few missions in playing on Veteran (one level down from the hardest setting) and I've already run into a few spikes in terms of the difficulty. When you start out you and your squad have limited abilities and gear, and then suddenly you're thrown up against raging mutons and sectopods!

I've started to level up my squad a bit now and with the new gear and abilities it's getting a bit better, but the AI of your squadmates is so bad it makes the game a chore to play at times. Seems they can't take care of themselves at all unless you give them an order, and even then they'll do moronic things like run straight over a mine while moving from point A to point B. I'm trying to like this game but it sure is making it difficult!

Oh, and apparently even aliens think that grenade spamming is an effective combat tactic! Maybe we're not so different after all...

Edit:

I guess there aren't many people playing this game. I finished it and ended up enjoying it despite its flaws. It's clunky and rough around the edges for sure, but the Mass Effect-ish combat gets pretty fun once you level up and you and your squad get better abilities and gear. You just have to persevere through the beginning part. The AI of your squadmates is a real downer though. Still might be worth picking up on sale for those who think it looks interesting.

I'm enjoying it as well and I agree the squad AI is horrendous. I made the usual mistake I always do which is playing it on the hardest difficulty.

I'm about 3-4 hours in and decided to do a side mission that is harder than anything I've seen so far. At one part you fight a group of 3 enemies, kill them and it sends down one of those sectopods with 2 more aliens. Once the sectopod is nearly dead it sends down more aliens with a shielded alien and the little flying things.

It's ridiculous. I can't get past it. Your guys are too stupid. The get downed pretty much instantly at this part. A part direclty before that had me laughing at how bad they are. As you mentioned, the aliens enjoy grenade spamming. My guys would scream to get out of the way, jump out of the grenade's radius, and then proceed to run straight back to the grenade to die. They did this at least 8 or so times before I figured I need to actually move them myself away from the grenade.

Other than this, I'm really enjoying the actual gameplay mechanics. If only it were just a tad better. I can't say too much story-wise since I'm not far enough in.

Oh and the screen tearing during dialogue parts is horrible on PS3. It's pretty distracting how bad it is. Never seen a game where it is so bad. Faces literally distorting from it.

I love this game. I played it on Commander and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. The AI really wasn't that much of a problem for me, though my squadmates running directly at a grenade about to explode did get real old. Besides that, everything about the game was great. The story was your typical '50s B-movie, cheesy, campy, but good at the same time.

The enemies aren't too hard, challenging, but they get easy once you figure out the right strategy to beat them. After I figured out everyone's strategies, the game became a breeze, except towards the end, when the game throws you 2 Elite Mutons and 2 Sectopods, along with Tech Commanders, Minion Commanders, Psion Commanders, Outsider Elites, and Phantom Elites, all in the same room. Even then, I enjoyed the hell out of this game. It's one of my GOTY contenders for this year.

Agree that, other than grenade spamming and plenty of times when the AI moves on its own into terrible positions, the game's fun enough and mechanically solid.

Story is all over the place though. You can see where it's been rewritten so many times over the years that it's a patchwork. (Especially loved the mission where you're told explicitly to bring someone back alive. When you don't, no one cares and somehow got the info anyway.)

Also the tie-ins to XCom are very limited, but that's ok. I just thought of it as an alternate 1960s universe.

I'm at the end and the game gets much easy once you have all the powers unlocked. Still, I found the minor operations to be far harder than anything in the main game, thus far anyway. I just got on the alien planet... the spacesuits are awesome!

Seriously loved this game. Like so much I'd put it number 3 on my GOTY so far. Behind Last of Us and Bioshock. Too bad it has XCOM in the name because it was already dismissed by majority of people for that.

The combat is very fun and I thought that was just going to be all it had going for it. It's basically Mass Effect but better. Reviews said the story goes off the rails and is dumb. I've quite enjoyed where the story goes with Mosaic and all that. Way more interesting than I expected.

I was extremely hesitant about this game after the reviews but after playing it I think it might have been a little harshly dealt with.

The mad men meets mass effect meets independence day premise is actually quite an interesting one. I enjoyed a lot of the alternate sci fi history components in a way that was faintly reminiscent of the Fallout games. The game play was mostly solid enough and some of the characters had potential. After finishing it I found myself wanting more, or perhaps I should say that I found the experience wanting. Such a nice premise was wasted a bit by a patchy gameplay experience, and some strange and under (or perhaps over) developed gameplay systems. I wanted there to be a more engaging story to carry me through this intriguing world... and I wanted the combat to work a little better.

I know this game went through many iterations but if the one they settled on had been the one that they started with, I do think that this could have been a genuinely excellent game. As it stands, they ended up putting out something solid, playable, and (in the most part) enjoyable.