The game is cool but bad. i played like 6 "xcom like" to the end in 2 years and i stop on this one out of boredom. Initially i felt the difficutly in normal mode was comically hard until i realised what internet can tell you, there is 1 way to build a team : The interceptor center piece and a bunch of cheerleaders. It completely trivialise the game but its nescessary if you don't want to redo the same mission 3 times in row. You can't play ranged or defensive because the computer plays defensive and throw armor piercing attack non stop like grenades and debuffs (also the longer the mission goes on the more negative events you have to deal with like lowering your max ammo, max hp, willpower etc, disabling crits ...), you have to crush pods instantly and the only reliable way to do that is that 1 teleport melee guy that can single handedly push more damage in 1 turn than the rest of the team in 3, he doesn't waste ap on movement because he teleports and melee attacks include 1 movement action. you go full crit, damage, action economy and movement, you will 100 to 0 all boses in 1 turn. The only way to improve on it is to suicide knights to recycle them into skill points for him or have a second one if you find enough gear. As a consequence, the battles became basically the same, most of the loot, character xp etc become cute but useless. you can have like 12 or 16 soldiers but only 1 really matters. The story is ok but starts to be a bit boring with the events where its just a bunch of people complaining giving you random debuffs every 2 weeks or so. i had all dlcs enabled and the new characters are cute but like the rest of them... they don't matter. Assasins are a big disapointement , the adeptus mechanicus soldiers are fun but clunky and not really effective especially since they have fixed specialised gear and can't equip the other armors with bonus actions etc that other charaters can. The juggernaut is cool but he doesn't really add anything and is clunky to use. He also is a big deal to repair since you need to spend your basebuilding ressources on it... for healing... so you can't really powertrip with it and have to be really carefull how you engage because you can't really afford wounds on it... the freaking juggernaut... but he is cool, destroying everything around while walking and getting himself hurt for no reason when stuff explodes lol (his skill tree is also a waste because his abilities depends on the gear you put on and the skills boosts certain abilities so you choose a setup and half the tree is now useless to you). there is plenty of mechanics in the game that are really cool but the overall result forces you to min max and gets boring. If you get a HUGE discount on the game why not but respect yourself and don't actually spend any realy amount of money on it.

What a game... Whaaaaat a game!

If you expect to play as the elite of the elite space marines with psychic powers, you will be disappointed; your action points are not enough to move in combat in a large map. Melee is extremely weak, especially when the whole stchik is to play with melee. A no-name naked cultist with a scrap auto gun will shred your terminator armor. And you won't be able to one-shot them with a normal attack, either close or ranged. The game is rushing you to play the objective, but map is so large for no reason that it becomes annoying, not challenging, to a point where it's not even fun. Upgrading your troops, while not complicated, feels shallow. If you want to buy the game, do not expect a power fantasy. Do not expect melee combat since most of the enemies will daze you and run away, so you have to spend action points to get them for not enough damage at all, putting you in a bad position. In summary, buy XCOM 2.