However there is something that worries me, the combat using action points. I've been eyeballing this game for awhile and have decided I am getting it, but I've never been great using or have even completed a game with action points. For those that have played, what's the difficulty like?

I played on the PC. I found the combat to be fantastic - I didn't love the main story of the game, though the surrounding lore was okay.

The game is fairly difficult until it all 'clicks' for you and makes sense. There's a lot of good starter guides out there. I remember reading a starter guide on Kotaku that was really useful.

From what I understand the enhanced edition is rebalancing the difficulty to be more consistent throughout the game and adding some sort of "casual mode" (and some sort of "very hard mode") to appeal to more players.

I don't think the combat is that difficult, you just need to figure out what combination of attacks work for what encounters.

You also really need to pick your spots and mostly only engage enemies that are your level or just a slightly above you, because higher level enemies will rip you apart in just a few turns.

Overall I think you'll hit a nice flow when it comes to combat pretty fast. (Maybe 5-6 hours or so, which is okay for a game like this.)

I think it's a pretty demanding tactical game but it isn't insanely hard and doesn't have the early game "my characters are totally useless" problem a lot of cRPGs have.

The combat though is really great and what makes the game what it is (that and the interacting magic and environment systems, which tie into the combat). My issues are with every other part of the game. But if you just want some really great combat this is the game for you. I sped through all the rest and played it like it was XCOM for about 60 hours and had a good time. The combat is about as good as you'll find in that genre and has its own unique mechanics that are very interesting.

EDIT: just remembered I played this on the "Hard" equivalent difficulty mode so I would say on normal it might not be as demanding as I say. But if you like tactics games and are pretty good at them I did really like it on that difficulty.

And I should also say I can't speak to the differences between the original release and the enhanced edition. There seem to be substantial changes. I am interested in going back to this version myself.