The QLEX got me real excited for this, but there's one thing I'm really curious to hear about that I don't think anything has been said on: does this have any replayability? I love XCOM because you can, like in Civ, play "a game of XCOM". There's a beginning, a couple beats along the way, and an end, but everything in between will be completely different every time. Have they said if The Bureau will be anything like that? The impression I get is that the entire game is a set progression of scripted missions that will all be the same every single time you play it. Maybe I'm missing some information where they talk about procedural generation or randomization.

It looks like it will follow a linear narrative since it's focused around one main character. I could see optional side missions much like the Council requests from Enemy Unknown where you might do something and gain a new soldier, weapon or what have you.

Hopefully that will be covered in the reviews.

Replayability is the thing that keeps me from pre-ordering since this game looks right up my alley. There's been comparison to the Mass Effect multiplayer but that game was coop and had randomized elements. This game although it shows potential looks completely linear with a lot of cut scenes.

I hope I'm wrong, but this looks like the type of 8-10 hour game that I buy when its discounted, play over the weekend, and never go back to again besides saying it was a quality game.

This was also the impression I got from the QL. The game looks interesting, sure, But certainly much more linear than XCOM.

I dunno about replayability in THIS game. But I've never played any XCOM game before Enemy Unknown and the Steam deal is offering up all previous XCOM titles, plus other bonuses! =D

It will have as much replayability as any other story driven third person shooter.

that was such a good deal, the QLEX and the deal on steam is what pushed me over the edge, actually really enjoying spec ops: the line too

Are the X-COM games pretty much impossible to get into today? Enemy Unknown was my first experience with the series and I know it was an incredibly streamlined game compared to the original trilogy. Worth nothing I only played it on Normal with the occasional scum saving for context.

@wampa1 said:

PC old guard will you tell you "Whatever, they hold up perfectly fine", but yeah, that's not true. They're cool games, but good lord, make sure you look through some guides so you get a sense of the handful of ways to succeed, and the myriad ways you could unwittingly misspend money or resources and totally fuck yourself over. There's way more management in old X-COM than the fairly thin layer that was in new XCOM.