I'm just gonna list 'em off.

1. It's been said before by other people, but the tutorial really does hold your hand in the base WAY more than it needs to. It feels like it forces you through the first like 10-15 actions you take in the base over the course of like 2-3 hours. The tutorial portion in the base really didn't need to extend much later than when the combat tutorial finishes.
2. Are all of the "Council request" missions bugged? The ones where you defuse a bomb, save a diplomat, have to recover some nonspecific "assets", etc. At both the beginning and end of my current game, it's been nothing but Thin Men on those missions, and that can't be right. I have all the tech, and it's still throwing Thin Men at me? Granted, in the first bomb defusal mission I did, it spawned only 2 Thin Men after I defused the bomb, whereas the late game one spawned 5 Thin Men after bomb defusal. But even then, it is completely trivial to murder them all when they're the second worst enemy in the game.
3. Laboratories seem kind of useless? I'm not really concerned about research time, as you tend to research stuff WAY faster than you can buy it anyway, since money is so tight right up until the end game. I never found that the number of scientists I had on staff was ever a restriction, though I guess if you specifically end up putting satellites over countries that only give engineers, maybe you would run into a scientist shortage. Comparatively, workshops are fucking awesome because they save you money in several ways, and I can't get enough of them.
4. Speaking of which, do workshops actually speed up production? The in-game description claims they do, but all of the manufacturing speeds seem completely fixed (satellites still take 20 fucking days, even with like 7 workshops). Foundry projects might be slightly faster, though it's hard to tell.
5. South America's ability seems useless. Autopsies and interrogations are already the fastest research projects, so I kinda don't care that they become instant. And unless you make your base in South America, by the time you get satellites over all of South America, you'll probably have done half the autopsies/interrogations, significantly hurting the advantage of the ability.
6. I wish the game explained Psi soldiers to you a little more clearly. Is Psi potential related to the Will stat, or is it just randomly assigned to soldiers "at birth"? Initially, I was only giving my colonels psi testing, since they have the highest Will. My one Psi soldier has like 86 Will, but I tested a soldier for Psi who had like 96 Will and he didn't have it. So now I'm just running all of my low ranking soldiers through the Psi testing, because I guess it is completely random?
7. Interceptions seem ridiculously rare. It seems completely stupid that you can hold multiple fighters in each base, when you barely get one interception per month. Your interceptors will pretty much always be repaired well before the next UFO appears.
8. This may be me just playing too optimally, but why bother buying pistols/upgrading them in the Foundry when you can just do the ammo conservation project in the Foundry, and effectively use your main weapons forever? I guess your sniper and shotgunner might appreciate it, but that's like 2 people out of your 6 man squad, and it just makes pistols such a low priority when I'm spending my money.
9. Can your satellites get shot down? There's a Foundry upgrade that suggests they can, but I've never had it happen yet. Also, if they can be shot down, way to not ever mention that anywhere else in the game.

Anyway, I've played the game for hours and hours so far, and I really am loving it. Everything just feels so cool. But these are the things that feel a little off to me, and I'm curious what other people think of them.

Can your satellites get shot down? There's a Foundry upgrade that suggests they can, but I've never had it happen yet. Also, if they can be shot down, way to not ever mention that anywhere else in the game.

Yeah, they sure as shit can. It's most likely to happen if you go into the "shoot down the Overseer" part of the game without a Firestorm, because you will have NO WAY of bringing it down. That thing will keep attacking every few hours until all your interceptors are dust, then blast your satellites out of the sky. This is also pretty much the only way to see an F rating from the council.

I'm just gonna list 'em off.

1. It's been said before by other people, but the tutorial really does hold your hand in the base WAY more than it needs to. It feels like it forces you through the first like 10-15 actions you take in the base over the course of like 2-3 hours. The tutorial portion in the base really didn't need to extend much later than when the combat tutorial finishes.
2. Are all of the "Council request" missions bugged? The ones where you defuse a bomb, save a diplomat, have to recover some nonspecific "assets", etc. At both the beginning and end of my current game, it's been nothing but Thin Men on those missions, and that can't be right. I have all the tech, and it's still throwing Thin Men at me? Granted, in the first bomb defusal mission I did, it spawned only 2 Thin Men after I defused the bomb, whereas the late game one spawned 5 Thin Men after bomb defusal. But even then, it is completely trivial to murder them all when they're the second worst enemy in the game.
3. Laboratories seem kind of useless? I'm not really concerned about research time, as you tend to research stuff WAY faster than you can buy it anyway, since money is so tight right up until the end game. I never found that the number of scientists I had on staff was ever a restriction, though I guess if you specifically end up putting satellites over countries that only give engineers, maybe you would run into a scientist shortage. Comparatively, workshops are fucking awesome because they save you money in several ways, and I can't get enough of them.
4. Speaking of which, do workshops actually speed up production? The in-game description claims they do, but all of the manufacturing speeds seem completely fixed (satellites still take 20 fucking days, even with like 7 workshops). Foundry projects might be slightly faster, though it's hard to tell.
5. South America's ability seems useless. Autopsies and interrogations are already the fastest research projects, so I kinda don't care that they become instant. And unless you make your base in South America, by the time you get satellites over all of South America, you'll probably have done half the autopsies/interrogations, significantly hurting the advantage of the ability.
6. I wish the game explained Psi soldiers to you a little more clearly. Is Psi potential related to the Will stat, or is it just randomly assigned to soldiers "at birth"? Initially, I was only giving my colonels psi testing, since they have the highest Will. My one Psi soldier has like 86 Will, but I tested a soldier for Psi who had like 96 Will and he didn't have it. So now I'm just running all of my low ranking soldiers through the Psi testing, because I guess it is completely random?
7. Interceptions seem ridiculously rare. It seems completely stupid that you can hold multiple fighters in each base, when you barely get one interception per month. Your interceptors will pretty much always be repaired well before the next UFO appears.
8. This may be me just playing too optimally, but why bother buying pistols/upgrading them in the Foundry when you can just do the ammo conservation project in the Foundry, and effectively use your main weapons forever? I guess your sniper and shotgunner might appreciate it, but that's like 2 people out of your 6 man squad, and it just makes pistols such a low priority when I'm spending my money.
9. Can your satellites get shot down? There's a Foundry upgrade that suggests they can, but I've never had it happen yet. Also, if they can be shot down, way to not ever mention that anywhere else in the game.

Anyway, I've played the game for hours and hours so far, and I really am loving it. Everything just feels so cool. But these are the things that feel a little off to me, and I'm curious what other people think of them.

@Terramagi said:

Can your satellites get shot down? There's a Foundry upgrade that suggests they can, but I've never had it happen yet. Also, if they can be shot down, way to not ever mention that anywhere else in the game.

Yeah, they sure as shit can. It's most likely to happen if you go into the "shoot down the Overseer" part of the game without a Firestorm, because you will have NO WAY of bringing it down. That thing will keep attacking every few hours until all your interceptors are dust, then blast your satellites out of the sky. This is also pretty much the only way to see an F rating from the council.

Yeah, that doesn't sound very good. Glad I had a Firestorm in the right continent when that ship appeared.

Yes, labs are close to useless due to the distinct lack of research objects in the game and the bonuses you get.

Workshops do not increase production speed afaik, only gives you more engineers.

I haven't played on Impossible yet, but South America might be useful as a tool for reaching critical upgrades quick enough if the game is tuned really tight. It might seem contradictory to what I said about labs, but the difference comes down to resources spent and timing. Taking over South America is a hit on income which will affect you later, while labs cost money right then and there. Combined with the fact that you'd need 2+ labs to get the same bonus the difference is quite significant.

Pistol upgrades can be damn useful for snipers due to movement restrictions.

Just finished the game on normal with ironman, my thoughts: 1. Fuck mind control. Had two guys from my original squad, heavy and a sniper with somthing like 50 and 80 kills each. One mind control, one head shot, minus one heavy... 2. M&K; controls get a little wonky when dealling with multiple floors, especially indoors. Kept having to rotate the camera to be able to select the square I wanted. 3. Double tap is awsome, especially with squadsight 4. Enemy spawed on top of me a couple of times, when playing ironman that shits fucked up... 5. Don't stick with one uber squad, should always have 1-2 lower level guys to gain experience. Otherwise when things go bad, and they will, you've nothing to fall back on. Will probably play again in a week or so on classic, probably not ironman though. While I like the mode in theory I had too many cases when I got screwed by last action enemy reveals leaving me completely flanked after they had their double move.

@BisonHero: Short answer: most of these issues or things you're mentioning were probably not a problem because you probably weren't playing on Classic or higher. Normal mode is tuned to be relatively easy for anyone familiar with Strategy games. Everything (money, time, resources) is tighter on Classic.

1. It also forces you to do things earlier than you might want to, but at least you get a free satellite out of it.
2. Depends on how fast you complete the game/difficulty level, etc. The more time that passes the harder the base enemies become. That said, Council missions need more variety and need to be more fun
3. Depends on your starting continent. Europe has faster research and relies less on them. I started in Asia and the time to plasma rifles was way too long
4. They lower cost of items, but I don't know if they speed anything to my knowledge. Very few things actually take time to build anyway.
5. If you don't have that research bonus then having instantaneous research instead of waiting 3-5 days isn't as bad as it seems.
6. I think it's based on the Rookie Will stat. The base Will that you started with, not your upgraded unit Will. Every promotion gives your guys more Will and more Aim so your 95 Will guy (if you bought that upgrade it's also gonna skew that) isn't necessarily a psychic shoe-in. It's also probably a dice roll so it's not a perfect shot. Hey, at least he's tough to mind control, right?
7. I wish it happened more too, but once I started covering > 1 continent with satellites it started occurring more frequently for me. Also if your weapons aren't upgraded on the interceptors or you don't have the Autopsy augments then it's very easy to get shot down before you shoot the UFO down on anything > Medium class UFOs. Sometimes I have to use two interceptors in waves to fight off a UFO.
8. Depends on your style of play, I guess. Plasma pistols on a sniper without the movement perk (I can't remember the name) is useful. Not to mention pistols are nice if you're capturing a lot of aliens to steal their tech.
9. Oh god yes they can. If they're not stealthed the aliens have big ships that come and wreck your shit if you can't shoot them down.