Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

I thought I would love this game, really. The marketing got my hyped and I pre-ordered it.
When the game came in, few things became obvious:
- The graphics, the animation, the camera management all aim and for the most part succeed in creating a feeling of dynamics and energy in what is otherwise a "take your time to play" game.
- There have been a lot of small additions to the old formula, and a few restrictions here and there, but this really feels and plays like XCom.
- Among all of the care, love and effort,something is missing to make this game as great as it could have been.

To summarize on the graphics and presentation, I bought a new laptop 5 months ago and it needs all settings turned to low. Even then when the cut-scenes play out (in max resolution) my PC drags its feet - err, pads I guess? So this means the graphics are indeed top notch. You might not get as detailed facial animation as you get in a handful of games, but this is pretty much as good as it goes. The base is represented in detailed 3D, the laser weapons glow, the walls intelligently get transparent so you can see where you want to go...
The music adapts to the game overall well. The only thing I would have wished for is a far longer set of scores, because this is a game you play at length for hours, and the music is soon repetitive.

In terms of gameplay, this is XCom alright: you manage your base research, equipment and building production on the one hand, and on the other hand you get your soldiers to level up while trying to survive in tackling the grays.
Actually, there are quite a few upgrades: your soldiers get to learn skills, and these skills will pick up from one of 4 class trees. But there are only 2 skills per class rank and often one of the two is obviously better chosen, so don't expect too much variety beyond classes.
The missions take place in many settings and I was pretty happy with them overall. For the most part, they were easier to read in terms of landscape and level, especially thanks to the holographic representation of cover.
Where the game shines a little less is in its faithful reproduction of the use of the mouse cursor: with the current version, it is a pain as soon as elevation is in play. The game indeed always selects the lowest tiles, even if you cannot see them.
Add to this that in some alien crafts the game auto-selects the wrong altitude to display and expects you to click at the wrong altitude while you cannot see where you are, and there is a bit of honing still to be done. (I am actually still keeping my hopes up for a patch on this point.)
The gameplay is a bit enhanced by the introduction of skills that change the way you act: suppression, for instance, prevents an enemy from moving, while lightning fast reflexes help you bring out reaction fire from the enemy for free.
Things have been simplified a bit, probably more to keep the game flowing than to make it appeal to the masses: gone are the action points! Here you just get a move and a normal action (like firing), or a single special action without moving (like firing a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher).
The story is a remake of the original, which is to say it is good in terms of keeping the gray mood up, but it does not shine or explain much at all. But I encourage you to participate in the tutorials, as they help set up thing pretty nicely.
Any action to fire a weapon will involve a random percentage to hit. So as usual, expect frustration to bring Murphy by the hand into your gameplay. ;)
Overall I found "normal" difficulty a little easier than the original XCom and even a little too easy - except for the last mission. But then there is hard, right? Well, yesssssssssss but. When the difficulty cranks up, you get to see the flaws of the game further. One of them is that you cannot stop animations and you cannot go to the main menu during the enemy's turn. But you need to keep each and all of your soldiers alive if you are to make it through hard mode. This results in many long wait times just after being frustrated at losing a soldier, until the game finally lets you regain control. Oh and the fact that your troops take their own sweet time to yell when they panic does not help the least.
Because of these, I cannot enjoy the game anymore. I like a difficult game, but then I do not like to not feel in control when the game is tough. If the small UI problems were corrected, I would probably finish the game on hard difficulty. But as it stands right now, it would be a loss of my time. So I recommend you play normal only and then shelf the game for good.
I have not tried the multiplayer. Gamespot editors seemed to be having some fun with it but Iµ doubt they will play it for long, judging from their mixed enthusiasm.

All in all, there is very little keeping this game from shining a lot! It is still a good time, but I would recommend waiting until it gets around 30 bucks instead of 60 to buy it.

I will still keep my eyes open, in case there is a follow up. After all Fireaxis are known for keeping up good series and improving gameplay from one iteration to the next!