The review is true in parts, but unfair as well.
I played the demo before, and the one for Aftermath (the first one of the UFO series) and I'm hooked. I ordered Aftermath, and I had to go out and buy Afterlight.
I wish I knew more about the background. I think it's based off of the two previous games (Aftermath and Aftershock.. but not certain on that.)
Let's start with the bad. The load times are horrible.. it seems to take 3-5 minutes between loads.. ie loading a new game, or arriving at a new site for battle. I admittedly have the minimum ram, and Vista, so they might be factors.... but it still seems excessive. The fighting sites are repetitive, but the fighting is fun.. at least against the Beastmen.. the drones are pretty boring.
There is a mission at the beginning that seems impossible to win without losing a guy.. I kept restarting that mission.. and no matter what I did, it was too much. Even when you run after you kill the big mech... anyhow, I just ended up skipping the mission. Also there are alot of missions to stop Beastmen and robots from blocking the watersupply.. fairly easy missions.. but a pain when you are trying to do other things, other missions, and this one keeps popping up.
The good things. I love the X-com feel, and I love the expansion of that feel, where you don't have rank, but you have levels in Soldier, Scientist, Technician. And it's possible to have levels in two classes. The more you research, the better you get.. the more you build, the better you get. Plus when you level up, you can train to learn new skills. Plus there are things to research, there are weapons and devices to build.. there are building to make, and there are resources to capture, because you have to have a certain amount of resources you need in order to build things. Like to build a new hospital unit (for wounded characters), you need a chemical level of 2. .. to build rifles, you need metal, it is simple, and makes sense. It has alot of micromanaging that I like.
I have really been jonesing for an X-com type game, I even started playing X-com 1 and 2 again.. I don't know if a 6.5 is a fair rating. I think maybe it should be rated at least a 7.5, but given my tilt, and my love of X-com and micromanaging.. I gotta rate it higher.