The last game recommended to me by Total Biscuit who I've known since the early WoW radio days, R.I.P. It's much better than the first one, yet lacks the atmosphere as some have mentioned; there was a spooky x-files-esque investigatory"feel" to the original that this one seems to lack. Yet I prefer this because it's better in every other way. Being an older gamer, I remember the X-COM days of yore, I'd even go as far as to say this game beats those out of the water too.

The only negative thing I can say is that in order to play this game without giving away all your privacy to a company that's just gonna sell it on and lose it via yet another data breach (whoospie! Sorry!) , is to add outgoing exceptions to your windows firewall. Seriously, this is why people are going back to piracy. Making it harder for paying customers to play a single player game offline, all while trying to harvest every scrap of information on them is not a good business practice. That is the only reason why I give this a negative review, these companies shouldn't be allowed to harvest your PC data after purchasing a game or at the very least, be able to opt out without getting "reminders" to accept the draconian terms and conditions.

Overall the game is good, because I’m a fan of the series. But I played this game back in 2016 and replaying it today surprises me how many bugs and broken mechanics still in the game. I haven't played WOTC yet so this review covers only the base game.

Besides the tons of UI bugs in the game the most significant problem to me is the game's terrible difficulty curve, It starts off tough and most of the time annoying and frustrating. Because of the lack of information about everything in the game (researches, facilities, upgrades and missions difficulty). You don't know for sure what you will get from doing some upgrades and with the lack of supplies in the beginning you can end up ruining your save. Rulers are totally broken in the beginning of the game and there's no clear explanation about how to avoid them if you don't google it.

If you manage to survive the early game frustration you'll start to finally enjoy the game strategy in the mid game, which is where the game really shines to me. But unfortunately not for much time, when you finish the last squad weapon and armor upgrades the game becomes too easy and even boring. Only the final mission gives you something to actually worry about but still not much. The Rulers would fit so much better in the late game, when you have access to more items and can rely on strategy over randomness... it literally makes no sense.

What makes me nuts is that most of the problems in that game are simple to fix, primarily related to lack of explanations and balancing tweaks. I don't know how since 2016 they haven't managed a way to fix it. I should be motivated to play WOTC after finishing the base game but I'm not. 6,5/10.

Honestly god awful. Gameplay is just frustrating as you get insta killed every 9 seconds and miss every shot 10 times in a row, You can have every possible advantage and still get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ because whatever math going on behind the scenes to decide if a shot hits or not is obv not working.
Don't know if its utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ incompetence or just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ devs, Worthless either way.