XCOM 2

 PC
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1694 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,117 out of 1694
  2. Mixed: 275 out of 1694
  3. Negative: 302 out of 1694
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  1. Silverflame
    Feb 8, 2016
    4
    "Hey, Commander! I recently bought this new strategy game. It is called Chess - The X-Com 2 Edition!"

    "An X-Com 2 edition of chess?" the commander replied. "What's different about it, Colonel?" "I'll teach you. You can be the white knights of X-Com, I shall be the black Advent aliens." They started playing. "Ha, I've got you now!" the commander said, grinning, as his knight    "Hey, Commander! I recently bought this new strategy game. It is called Chess - The X-Com 2 Edition!"

    "An X-Com 2 edition of chess?" the commander replied. "What's different about it, Colonel?"

    "I'll teach you. You can be the white knights of X-Com, I shall be the black Advent aliens."

    They started playing.

    "Ha, I've got you now!" the commander said, grinning, as his knight attacked the colonel's bishop.

    "Not so fast! First we need to spin this." The colonel pointed to a roulette wheel that came in the box. "You see, whether a piece can take another piece is random! Fun!"

    The commander seemed unsure about this concept. "That makes no sense," he said. "My knight is clearly right in front of that bishop, and he is well trained, so why would he not succeed? Ah, whatever, just spin the damn wheel."

    A few minutes later, the commander's peasant moved close to the colonel's queen. Quickly, the colonel moved several pieces out of the way and placed a new knight on the board, which defeated the commander's peasant. The colonel was so into the game that he did all this in slow motion, like a kid playing with action figures.

    "What the hell did you just do, soldier?!"

    "Oh, that's a rule," the colonel said excitedly. "The black advents get free moves while it's your turn to play, and some newly appearing pieces even get to hit your pieces without the roulette wheel most of the time!"

    "Are you kidding me?!" the commander said, an incredulous look on his face. "This is not a strategy game if you have random events like this. And in a turn-based game, pay attention to whose turn it is! Oh, and for the love of advent burgers, stop with the slow motion and killing animations already! You're wasting my time!"

    "Sorry, commander, but these are the rules! You chicken? If you'd like, you can just reload your piece and try the same turn again until the outcome suits you. Hmm, come to think of it...basing a game on a probabilistic scheme should always lead people to reload, which means any such system ends up being tedious and no fun for most players. Ha! This is pretty dumb game design, ha ha ha!" The colonel beamed anyway, pretending it was just difficult and challenging.

    "I don't need no frickin reload!!"

    They continued playing, the commander getting more and more frustrated with the strange rules of the game. Despite all odds, he ended up devising an ingenious strategy, circumnavigating the defenses of his subordinate, when suddenly ...

    "Ooh, well," the colonel said. "You lose."

    "What?"

    "It has been 15 turns, and you have not defeated me yet, so you lose," the colonel explained. "Didn't I tell you? The white knights of X-Com only get a few turns to win the match. I already cheated on your behalf and gave you 7 more turns than normal."

    "What in the absolute hell?!" the commander yelled. "That is the dumbest thing I've heard since the incident with the microwave casserole at Black Mesa! On the one hand, I am supposed to devise a strategy to avoid your stupid rules, but on the other hand, you give me no time to do so and waste half of that with roulette! This is not chess, this is not a strategy game, this is a casino!"

    The colonel frowned and took a closer look at the box of the game. "Warning: May cause gambling addiction," he read. "Oh, so that's why I'm so hooked on this thing... Anyway, this casino-chess-simulator comes with a story, but it consists of many, many nearly identical matches like this, more time limits and forced gameplay, and I will also be compelled to explain your goal in every match as if you didn't know it already." The colonel smiled brightly. "We can try that, if you like -- you know, for the benefit of the story!"

    The commander sighed. "Is the story any good, at least? Proper characters that grow and change as the plot unfolds? A fine ending with a shocking twist, a clever idea at its base and an emotionally significant boss battle?"

    "Hmm..." The colonel's face fell a little. "Actually, at the end, I'm just going to throw a large number of pieces on the board for you to defeat, after which I shall act out a meaningless cutscene. The characters have as much personality as a sea slug and come from the planet of hats. Nothing else to it, I'm afraid. On the bright side, these chess pieces and the board are visually really impressive!"

    At that moment, a piece glitched through the table and fell in a stuttering motion to the floor.

    "Alright, that's it!", the commander yelled as he stood up. "I've had it with you and your badly designed games! We are going to use this one for target practice tomorrow! Star Wars Battlefront - The Board Game Edition, is relieved of this position immediately!"

    "Aye, aye, sir!"    … Expand
  2. Avadon
    Feb 7, 2016
    4
    XCOM 2 is challenging, but for the wrong reasons. Most of it comes from the randomness that exists as its core mechanic, from the level design (procedural), to hit chances, to turn limit sizes, to world map events. Whether you'll like it or not depends on what you want out of it.

    Personally, I'd prefer a more tightly designed game that is harder than this (more enemies in maps +bigger    XCOM 2 is challenging, but for the wrong reasons. Most of it comes from the randomness that exists as its core mechanic, from the level design (procedural), to hit chances, to turn limit sizes, to world map events. Whether you'll like it or not depends on what you want out of it.

    Personally, I'd prefer a more tightly designed game that is harder than this (more enemies in maps +bigger maps +more "puzzle-y" encounters), but without the timers and stress and RNG everywhere. I'd rather have developer-designed maps and missions with tough encounters where you need to utilize the terrain and your equipment in the right way, rather than proceduraly generated missions with a turn limit that is barely enough for you to sprint to the objective and destroy it, and then pray as the 4 pods that you aggroed along the way rain down on you from the ceilings and wipe out your entire squad while your overwatches miss. Only to go back to the world map and see the Avatar gaining its 3rd ping in the same week due to RNG dark events.

    XCOM 2 is overwhelming in a way that makes you feel helpless. Because you are. Better read some Reddit threads and restart the whole thing, doing only the absolutely most optimal things. Why do the rest of the options exist again?

    You can mod out all the crazy 8 turn limits and massive random spikes in Avatar progress though. Great. What you are left with then is an extremely easy game. Guess why. Because that's what it is. An extremely easy game, made hard only through RNG rigged to screw you as a core design philosophy. The encounters themselves are easy and the maps are poorly designed, like everything procedural. There's no actual depth. There are no "damn, I'm a genious" moments as you lure an overwhelming force back to a well fortified position with half of your squad lying in the perfect ambush. The game gives you no time to think. No time to strategize. No time to have fun.    … Expand
  3. gongal
    Feb 6, 2016
    3
    - Enemies see and attack through the walls
    - There's basicaly no height advantage since everyone can see everyone and aim perfectly through the roofs, walls etc.. more than ridiculous.
    - Patrols are triggered without seeing you, only because your guy noticed them 5 miles away - You noticed the enemy? Don't worry you won't get any tactical advantage since they always see you as well, get    - Enemies see and attack through the walls
    - There's basicaly no height advantage since everyone can see everyone and aim perfectly through the roofs, walls etc.. more than ridiculous.
    - Patrols are triggered without seeing you, only because your guy noticed them 5 miles away
    - You noticed the enemy? Don't worry you won't get any tactical advantage since they always see you as well, get a free turn to position themselves behind covers. Lazy lazy programming and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ design.
    - Removed secondary weapons because too much tactical depth. You have to reload your plastic guns every few turns.
    - There's nothing that makes sense for this game being a PC exclusive, as it's basicaly an overall dumbed down experience.
    - They were praising Long War all this time, but made basically no changes to the overall formula. There was a massive amount of improvements in Long War that they were very much unable to include in the sequel.
    - Turn timers for each mission...
    - No optimalization aka game runs like ♥♥♥
    - 3 of my soldiers were killed by exploding walls while shooting in the overwatch stance
    - Awesome Enemy Unknown music was replaced by a stereotypical hollywood strings.
    - You can't realistically hide in this game, because even if you are positioned behind a solid concrete building, waiting to ambush an enemy, you are instantly exposed and being shoot through the walls.

    I can't even imagine what kind of people design their games in firaxis. It's just unreal.    … Expand
  4. 21-5-73
    Feb 6, 2016
    3
    Things you could do in the original XCOM (1994) and you can't do anymore:

    1. Air combat, because now there is only one vehicle disposable. 2. Inventory management, because now your soldier can' Exchange or drop objects anymore. 3. Shoot more than 4 shots without going ot of ammo, because...? 4. Have several bases around the world, because aliens have conquered Earth and...? and they    Things you could do in the original XCOM (1994) and you can't do anymore:

    1. Air combat, because now there is only one vehicle disposable.
    2. Inventory management, because now your soldier can' Exchange or drop objects anymore.
    3. Shoot more than 4 shots without going ot of ammo, because...?
    4. Have several bases around the world, because aliens have conquered Earth and...? and they are so many there is no way to put up a base even in Antarctica or Gobi desert?
    5. Have a fighting team of more than 6 elements, because now you are a guerrilla leader, and...?
    6. Research more projects simultaneously, because you had several base with several laboratories and several teams, like it should logically be, and now your scientists can only work on one project at time, because...?
    7. Take enemies by surprise, catching them from behind, and now you can do it, but only once during concealment phase, then surprise a hidden enemy is no more possible, because when discovered, enemies automatically see you and go in cover mode.
    8. Plan you tactical battles carefully, using overwatch and advancing slowly to minimize risks, like every good soldier should do, and now it's too often not possible because you are on a turn limit that forces you to dash under enemy fire, because urgency really makes a game more tactical, or so the experts say.
    9. Have tanks fight alongisde human soldiers, using them as disposable scouts, mobile covers and heavy artillery, and now....?
    10. Have a balance in enemies progress, and now you have aliens who can revive their comrades and mind trick your soldiers in 2nd-3rd mission, because the world out there is cruel, and kids must learn frustration and videogames are the best Teachers.

    And I'm not even going to list all the bugs and glitches. Others have done it well enough.

    And now you know.    … Expand
  5. CockmageLVL99
    Feb 6, 2016
    3
    Here are my thoughts after 10 hours with this game. 10 hours of trying hard to like this game trying to forgive all those bugs and crahes and trying not to get mad when the game's state again is sent to no-responding-land. This is it, I'm done. This is not a kickstarter early access title. This hasn't been developed by a young studio with little money. This is a full priced triple A studioHere are my thoughts after 10 hours with this game. 10 hours of trying hard to like this game trying to forgive all those bugs and crahes and trying not to get mad when the game's state again is sent to no-responding-land. This is it, I'm done. This is not a kickstarter early access title. This hasn't been developed by a young studio with little money. This is a full priced triple A studio title.
    But even with a decent PC which runs games with similar (and better) graphics flawlessly, the performance is disastrous and btw I'm running medium settings. The framerate often drops so hard that it feels like playing crysis 2 on a gameboy. The UI responenses sluggishly. Clicking buttons in XCOM2 to me feels a bit like using a cheap Android smartphone from 10 years ago. XCOM2 graphics overall have not improved that much to justify those high system requirements. In addition I don't like the overall look and feel of the game. It often times is so hard to tell what is going on in this game. The levels are often dark and the colors don't vary much -its like an all dark blue, grey, black soup where you often try to find your soldier's and your foe's position. Don't get me wrong you CAN and WILL find characters but it is exhausting to do. Also because the camera is really bad. It acts like a monkey on steriods trying to capture a michael bay movie. I often times find little me trying to adjust the perspective with spinning and clicking the mouse wheel to zoom in and out and pressing q and e repeatedly for rotating back and forward to find a good view. It's just so unsatisfying.
    Sound design is quite ok but i personally would have liked it a lot more if characters from non english speaking countries would speak with their specific accent just like the characters from Jagged Alliance 2 back in the days. God I miss JA2 -a game where you actually are able to perform tactical decisions. In XCOM2 you now have a turn limit which forces you to rush forward with no cover and get face melted by the enemy.
    Oh and those bugs... god I am so sick of jumping cursors, displaced soldiers, blocked characters, shots through walls and all that stuff.

    If I were you I would wait a few more month until some patchwork has been done and non 2K-designers with a brain brought out a UI mod.    … Expand
  6. TsukasaHiiragi
    Mar 17, 2017
    0
    Vanilla Xcom 2 4/10 /// Modded Xcom 2 6/10
    TL:DR
    In some ways, better than EU but still no way near as good as the originals and without mods to rebalance the game, you'll find it frustrating. Firaxis needs to do better with this franchise, and as always don't listen to most of the critics and 10/10 reviewers, this is strictly for the fans of the reboot. After being a fan of the    Vanilla Xcom 2 4/10 /// Modded Xcom 2 6/10
    TL:DR

    In some ways, better than EU but still no way near as good as the originals and without mods to rebalance the game, you'll find it frustrating. Firaxis needs to do better with this franchise, and as always don't listen to most of the critics and 10/10 reviewers, this is strictly for the fans of the reboot.

    After being a fan of the original trilogy, let me rephrase that as a huge fan of the originals - the reboots have angered me greatly as they have not done any justice in my personal opinion, if anything - have been a travesty to the Xcom franchise and Xcom 2 is arguably the worst because not only do you have the same cheating AI with miraculous almost impossible shots to spawning extra alien squads at the worst possible times making some missions all but impossible to add further insults.

    A large chunk of missions are timed with very tight limits making a front frontal assault the only viable option to meet the limit and that method almost always puts your prized troops at risk with each and every mission. The balance of the game is just dreadful, along with EU the enemy units out class you, and out gun and out number you forcing you to rely on guerilla style tactics and ambushes, which is good and all, until the AI decides to cheat and shoot you through walls or shoot you half way across the map with near 100% accuracy.

    Xcom 2 complicates it even more with many different units this time, not to mention some of the classic ones returning, but in a beefed up version than before - even those pesky sectoids are considerably more dangerous now, and will PSI attack you all the time, often with very high success rates. Another very major problem is related to the avatar project, the aliens can power through construction sometimes making a game over situation possible just because you miss-managed your time, or didn't discover enough ways to slow down the project in time, this aspect in Xcom 2 doesn't work very well but luckily there are enough mods to balance this.

    Time Management is a huge problem, you hardly ever have time to breath in Xcom 2 without a new 'important' mission appearing that you must do, either extract VIPS, protect the rebels, attack dark sites and the list goes on and on and you hardly get any peace without being interrupted, it gets incredibly tiresome after the 200th cookie cutter mission has forced you to abandon your supply collections.

    Xcom 2 needs a huge amount of mods to essentially balance out the game, even with major rebalances almost to the point of outright cheating, the game can still be stressful and frustrating - essentially you'll be save scumming a lot if you become attached to your favorite crew.    … Expand
  7. Scritty
    Feb 6, 2016
    0
    Sneak into enemy base undetected after spending hours on a flight. Suddenly (again) you hear "Right we have 8 turns (2 minutes) to get in and out. No recce has been done, so rush in, press a button/hack a terminal/free a dweeb - whatever then rush out again. 1.2.3 TANK RUSH
    That is not tactical, it's not clever. it's
    NOT WHAT GUERILA WARFARE IS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM Real guerilla    Sneak into enemy base undetected after spending hours on a flight. Suddenly (again) you hear "Right we have 8 turns (2 minutes) to get in and out. No recce has been done, so rush in, press a button/hack a terminal/free a dweeb - whatever then rush out again. 1.2.3 TANK RUSH
    That is not tactical, it's not clever. it's
    NOT WHAT GUERILA WARFARE IS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM

    Real guerilla warfare is 90% about gathering the intelligence, setting the trap and getting into position

    YES... the actual firefight may be short and sharp, but the preparation is absolutely paramount - every rime

    There is no prep in this game. No time. On many maps the maths of the distance and your squads movement limit barely allows you to reach the objective at a full sprint.

    Ready steady TANK RUSH!!!!

    No guerilla warfare is fought like that. Not from a guerilla group that expects their troops to fight more than one battle it isn't. Recon, planning, set up then a short fire fight then out.
    Mad rush to objective is not the way small forces fight against large ones anywhere - ever.

    Why do they rely on this timer over and over again?
    Because the enemy AI is risibly poor and the sense of urgency and tension is completely and 100% down to the timer in the early game
    Later in the game enemies have uber HP levels (so the programmer typed a bigger number into the enemy HP when designing the game .. yeah, great - top strategy... yawn)
    Then their are the faces of your troops. OMG. Like melted waxworks. The extra detail only show cases how damn ugly they all are. YEUCH!!
    Real disappointment, Terrible design decisions destroyed the franchise for a second time after the Interceptor did almost 20 years ago.
    What a shame.    … Expand
  8. HozzMidnight
    Feb 6, 2016
    4
    Promising but released way too soon. I literally can not recall the last game that gave me as much technical difficulties as XCOM 2.

    Very poor FPS on a system that ran Witcher 3 fine on Ultra@1080P. Worse than that, cutscenes that lead to hard locks, some that are 100% reproducible. Wait until there are multiple patches before picking this one up. No idea how this got a 91 from    Promising but released way too soon. I literally can not recall the last game that gave me as much technical difficulties as XCOM 2.

    Very poor FPS on a system that ran Witcher 3 fine on Ultra@1080P. Worse than that, cutscenes that lead to hard locks, some that are 100% reproducible.

    Wait until there are multiple patches before picking this one up. No idea how this got a 91 from the Critics given its current state.    … Expand
  9. Woohoohoo
    Feb 6, 2016
    3
    To say it briefly, XCom 2 is to turn-based strategy what Call of Duty is to first-person shooters (a corridor shooter with no gameplay freedom whatsoever).

    Golden age games (1994 Xcom, Jagged Alliance, etc) gave player full freedom to decide how game's going to play. XCom 2 is for some dumb reason very scared of this, and what you get is boundaries at every aspect. Numerous mods to    To say it briefly, XCom 2 is to turn-based strategy what Call of Duty is to first-person shooters (a corridor shooter with no gameplay freedom whatsoever).

    Golden age games (1994 Xcom, Jagged Alliance, etc) gave player full freedom to decide how game's going to play. XCom 2 is for some dumb reason very scared of this, and what you get is boundaries at every aspect. Numerous mods to those games which expand freedom even more should be very clear message what players want. I guess people at 2K just don't care about this and imagine that average player is paralyzed, braindead and and of course, extremely bad player.
    No ammo, inventory management is basically non-existing, and even seemingly free movement on globe is constantly broken up by game forcing you with "critical" missions. I swear it took 6 times to finish one "contact rebels" quest (which takes 4 game days) due my Avenger being constantly called off to the other side of world due some "crisis". The game even forces you to have full squad all the time, unless you take time to manually remove soldiers each time before mission. Why?

    XCom remake wasn't good game to begin with - compared to original, and they just managed to dumb this down and restrict player even more. For a PC exclusive, I also wonder why almost whole tactical combat can be played with plain keyboard... in 2016.

    Storyline is rushed and interesting for maybe 10-year old, especially insultingly bad ending with some Dragonball Z or whatever going on. Science is not interesting (unlike in 1994 original or recent Xenonauts) and I found myself not even reading at research results after few tries. Game is ridden with bugs and runs very choppily here and there. Final mission is harder than one in XCom: Terror from the Deep, and that is saying a lot!

    Graphics look like it were developed for Playstation 2, but still pop-in and break at any chance. Music, now without Michael McCann, feels mostly like stock hollywood "heroic scene" soundtrack, which also kills all and any mood previous game had and doesn't even come close to "Fear simulator" the 1994 game had.

    Long story short, get Jagged Alliance 2, install 1.13 patch and you'll forget XCom 2 existed in about 5 minutes. Forever.    … Expand
  10. ZetarXenil
    Feb 5, 2016
    4
    What seemed to be great game, turned out to be another good concept buried under the pile of frustrating bugs, poorly executed mechanics and other annoyances. Game runs really bad, you can frequently get stuck on some of the menus and the amount of bugs is just enormous. They didn't even fix bugs that existed 4 years ago, back in Enemy Unknown. We live in sad times, once again promisingWhat seemed to be great game, turned out to be another good concept buried under the pile of frustrating bugs, poorly executed mechanics and other annoyances. Game runs really bad, you can frequently get stuck on some of the menus and the amount of bugs is just enormous. They didn't even fix bugs that existed 4 years ago, back in Enemy Unknown. We live in sad times, once again promising game gets ruined by the laziness of the devs.… Expand
  11. kharnikhal
    Feb 6, 2016
    4
    Under no circumstances is this game even a 7/10. I played about 5 or 6 hours before uninstalling

    It runs horribly. My rig GTX770, Xeon E3-1231v3, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD (runs Fallout 4 high/very high quite comfortably). I turned AA and AO off, turned rest of the settings to medium, and it still runs like crap. Constant fps drops, hangs, graphical glitches, jarring microstuttering, you name    Under no circumstances is this game even a 7/10. I played about 5 or 6 hours before uninstalling

    It runs horribly. My rig GTX770, Xeon E3-1231v3, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD (runs Fallout 4 high/very high quite comfortably). I turned AA and AO off, turned rest of the settings to medium, and it still runs like crap. Constant fps drops, hangs, graphical glitches, jarring microstuttering, you name it.

    Most of the missions are now timed, which means you usually have about 8-12 turns to complete a mission. This heavily encourages running and gunning, which in turn means that you will lose a lot of squad mates, and if you want to keep them alive, well you have to reload the entire mission so you get new RNG-seeds for the enemy shots, and pray to RNGeesus that they dont hit you.

    No more tactical advancement, no more strategy, just run in, shoot aliens, hope that you hit them, rinse and repeat. The game also puts in sectoids against you right from the second mission. They can mind control, raise dead soldiers (which get a HP boost because **** you thats why), use panic attacks, and oh they also have 8 HP (your starting weapons deal 3-5dmg, usually 3 though), and they usually run deep into cover, inside a building where they cant be killed, while they destroy your squad with Psionic attacks that have 100% accuracy. Sounds fair, no?

    Did you get frustrated in the previous X-Com, when the aliens, once discovered, could freely run to cover on YOUR turn? Well, dont worry, because they still do that in X-Com 2 too! The only time this doesnt happen is when your squad is in concealment, but the missions never give more than 2 or maybe 3 enemies to shoot from concealment, and there's no way to regain the concealment. Then you advance on the map, you discover another group of 3 aliens, and off they go, sprinting to cover for free. Because **** you, thats why.

    On the starter weapons you have 4 shots before you have to reload, which further slows you down, because again, yep you guessed, **** you thats why. This couldve easily been 5 or 6 shots.

    Enemies get reinforcements on almost all missions, and you never know where the dropship comes in from, usually behind you, and then, yep you guessed it, they get free movement to cover while they flank you. And you know the reason why.

    An example mission: Need to get to EVAC zone, 3 turns left before mission fails, one of your squad mates is already dead, others on low HP. 2 enemies ahead, between you and the EVAC zone. And boom, reinforcements from the back (they literally appear out of the dark), now you have no cover anywhere on the map, clock is ticking, each enemy shot kills a squad mate, and how did I forget to mention that one of the mission objectives was "Extract all X-Com soldiers", which mean if one of them dies, you have to pick the corpse up (and you cant shoot when youre carrying a body), and get it to the EVAC zone.

    That was mission 3, btw, about 1,5hrs in the game, while youre still in starter gear, starting weapons, starter everything.

    I dont have a problem with challenging games, but only if the challenge is fair. This game is just dice rolling, in timed missions, against superior numbers, superior gear, and superior skill-moves all the time.    … Expand
  12. uglyNobody
    Feb 7, 2016
    4
    This is the first time I am writing a real negative review for a game. A game I really wanted to enjoy.

    I know XCOM can be a tough game to play. But this time the word "tough" needs to be replaced with whatever suits the following: - I started playing the game on the third of the four difficulty levels, because I know the first game and wanted an intense gameplay experience. I    This is the first time I am writing a real negative review for a game. A game I really wanted to enjoy.

    I know XCOM can be a tough game to play. But this time the word "tough" needs to be replaced with
    whatever suits the following:

    - I started playing the game on the third of the four difficulty levels, because I know the first game
    and wanted an intense gameplay experience.
    I realized that the aim percentage you see while attacking an enemy is seemingly reduced by 15-20% because of the difficulty level. I missed four out of five shots when the percentage was between 65-80%. Long story short: no fun - executing tactics where a disaster. I perfectly flank an enemy to kill him, I miss and get kicked right away losing one of my best soldiers.

    - I started overs four times before I realized, I would have to lower the difficulty. Did that, enjoyed two hours of gameplay, until I went through a routine mission with the first time facing the snake like enemy. The moment one of my soldiers was grabbed and pulled to the this enemy through three walls without any line of sight was the moment I just had to quit this game and give it this review.

    My conclusion unfortunately is that this game is unplayable if you like a strategic challenge, because the game just does not let you execute any strategy - it just keeps kicking you in the face from out of nowhere.

    If you like the story and do not bother about the gameplay experience to much, then play on Rookie and go ahead.

    Definitely not recommended. A pity.    … Expand
  13. Ignibus
    Feb 6, 2016
    0
    After years of using metacritic I finally joined JUST to pan this PoS game. I can't take it...85% (and that is -not- an exaggeration) are timed missions (missions that have parts are all that must be completed in a certain number of turns). To add insult to this injury the loot despawns after three turns...not three turns AFTER it drops but three turns including the turn it drops.After years of using metacritic I finally joined JUST to pan this PoS game. I can't take it...85% (and that is -not- an exaggeration) are timed missions (missions that have parts are all that must be completed in a certain number of turns). To add insult to this injury the loot despawns after three turns...not three turns AFTER it drops but three turns including the turn it drops. Seriously.

    I have no idea what the devs were thinking and why they feel that forcing people to rush recklessly across the map is 'fun'. It is NOT fun to play well only to be forced to run double moves and BAM...right in to a pod.

    Seriously, is this a joke? Are you all just swimming around naked in a pile of our money laughing at us? Clearly your plan to release preview copies to critics that only allowed them to play for a month worked! Look at that metascore! Well, enjoy the free fall of the user score.    … Expand
  14. Bobsagoth
    Feb 5, 2016
    2
    First time reviewing game here due to this unoptimized pile of game. Not giving this zero as there are some elements that i kinda like in here but the sum of all not so good elements is far greater that the positives.

    To get started the first thing that puts me off from this is the enemy movement. Setting up ambushes and the triggering the end of concealment is ok but having    First time reviewing game here due to this unoptimized pile of game. Not giving this zero as there are some elements that i kinda like in here but the sum of all not so good elements is far greater that the positives.

    To get started the first thing that puts me off from this is the enemy movement. Setting up ambushes and the triggering the end of concealment is ok but having reinforcements drop in byt transport and then allowing enemies to move into position is not.

    Then the ammo capacity. 2k apparently did the exactly opposite what is even close to realistic and made clip size even smaller that was in Xcom 1. Which is just horse manure. Point me to a soldier with AR who wastes clip with 4 shots. And 1 grenade (without perks) oh really?

    What comes to timed missions can understand that they create sense of urgency but yet again the presentation is greatly flawed as the mission just ends stating that xcom was disbanded and everything went to hell. Then why the F"@# they send only 4 soldiers with equipment for one to mission so important that resistance and humanity ends if it fails, yet spend time designing fancy looking avenger and armour. Yes i know these are design choices by devs but to me it show how little they put thought onto this particular thing and instead made roller-coaster ride out of turn based tactical game.

    I might be able to live with some of the choices made while developing this game but the condition it was released is just shameful. I can't understand how it runs so poorly (i could play Fallout 4 without problems) and has so many bugs and yet it looks just the same as xcom 1. Seems that every site that reviewed it and gave max scores have forgotten that not everyone has ultra gaming rig and developers have forgotten to optimize this because of how scalable pc is. In that regard i would've liked to see console version as that would've forced devs to optimize this a bit.

    All in all.
    + idea behind the game

    - Presentation (enemy movement during our turn, ammo clips size, equipment capacity, shooting thru walls, etc)
    - Bugs and glitches    … Expand
  15. itmo
    Feb 5, 2016
    4
    Not sure how this game is getting 100%, which equates to a perfect game, when it has more bugs than a bethesda release and I am already over the timed missions. I have done 8 missions so far, and 7 have had a turn limit imposed. The missions are getting boring after 5 hours of play. There are basically 2 mission types, they are, get to the objective within 6 turn, then kill anyNot sure how this game is getting 100%, which equates to a perfect game, when it has more bugs than a bethesda release and I am already over the timed missions. I have done 8 missions so far, and 7 have had a turn limit imposed. The missions are getting boring after 5 hours of play. There are basically 2 mission types, they are, get to the objective within 6 turn, then kill any remaining enemy forces, or, kill all enemy forces and take as long as you want. The stealth mechanic in the game sounds nice but is a pointless element that hasn't been fully developed. In reality, the stealth concept hasn't added anything to the so called strategy part of this strategy game. I am still not sure why the enemy gets a free movement turn during your turn when they discover you, this really makes the whole stealth concept stupid and irreverent. This was a big annoyance for me in the previous game, when the enemy discovers you, they get to move all their units into cover during your turn. Really breaks the immersion and idea of creating a strategy of getting the enemy caught in a cross fire as they can just run off behind some cover. The looting system is a dumbed down element from the previous game, it doesn't matter if you use explosives to kill enemy's , you still get all their crap, corpses, upgrades etc. The graphics issues list is a large one, there are camera issues, line of sight issues, shot through 3 walls issues, see through walls issues, excessive loading times during the missions and loading in and out of missions. In it's current state it is almost unplayable, another game release that doesn't work, just add it to the list. The gaming industry is in an absolute shambles atm.… Expand
  16. armchairjerk
    Feb 6, 2016
    4
    If you can try this game out before buying it. Very glad I was able to do so before wasting money on this. Maybe with the future DLC and GOTY edition I will change my mind, till then im sad i wasted 4 hours on it.
  17. ScienceAdvisor
    Feb 6, 2016
    3
    Hit expand to see this with proper spacing. Metacritic threw a 503 error and erased my original review. Since most of it was a warning about the poor design/performance, this will just be a point form listing of the cons (too few pros to waste time on). This could never *honestly* be considered a 10/10, even with a reviewer optimized copy unless you are essentially brain-dead as to whatHit expand to see this with proper spacing. Metacritic threw a 503 error and erased my original review. Since most of it was a warning about the poor design/performance, this will just be a point form listing of the cons (too few pros to waste time on). This could never *honestly* be considered a 10/10, even with a reviewer optimized copy unless you are essentially brain-dead as to what the term gameplay means. Anyone claiming the gameplay is the same as the previous release clearly has not played this.

    Cons

    -Performance Issues

    -Run&Gun as missions are ~85% timed now (artifical and pathetic attempt at difficulty or suspense). This also eliminates the value of all but two classes.

    -Little-to-no tactics or strategy (see Run&Gun)

    -Many silly/lazy gameplay elements (RNG used without consideration or believability) both in, and out of combat

    -Scripted elements within the the missions (spawns), and the way the game unfolds at a pace that is far too quickly advanced, robs this of much of XCom 2's advertised replayability

    -No active Physically Based Render engine as it looks nearly identical to their original game, just with higher resolution textures that are not nearly as realistic as the procedurally generated GTA5 car paint-jobs

    Mods will be needed to save this, as Firaxis has shown it does not have a clue. So much for all their promises about listening to fans of the Long War mod. Collapse    … Expand
  18. AlexJB
    Feb 5, 2016
    0
    This game has a very high difficulty curve and many features which together make this game very frustrating.

    One of the first aliens you encounter are Sectoids, while your trying to kill them with your rookie soldiers, he can mind control up to two of them and reanimate any dead. To regain control of your soldiers, you can kill the sectoid, which is almost impossible when he is    This game has a very high difficulty curve and many features which together make this game very frustrating.

    One of the first aliens you encounter are Sectoids, while your trying to kill them with your rookie soldiers, he can mind control up to two of them and reanimate any dead. To regain control of your soldiers, you can kill the sectoid, which is almost impossible when he is accompanied with other troops and sectoids.

    Many missions are timed, forcing you to rush your moves, which can get you killed. This is worse when you are trying to save civilians. There are also long waiting times on the ai turn, leaving you with nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs.

    In conclusion I can’t recommend this game, waste of money and frustrating experience.

    If they can balance it by having a gradual increase in difficulty and tweaking things like the timer, then you might have a game worth playing.    … Expand
  19. Joote
    Feb 14, 2016
    0
    20 hours and I can confirm that this game is a pile of cheating junk, but it looks pretty and has nice character generation. So it depends what turns you on.
  20. Winterspark
    Feb 6, 2016
    2
    The good:
    - nice strategic gameplay (when you get there)
    The bad: - load times are insanely long (Witcher, Tomb Raider, etc. are way faster on my machine) - Enemy difficulty seems mismatched with your crew (multiple psychic aliens on first level) - You spend so much time doing admin in your ship which takes forever, especially when you have to constantly try to skip through endless    The good:
    - nice strategic gameplay (when you get there)

    The bad:
    - load times are insanely long (Witcher, Tomb Raider, etc. are way faster on my machine)
    - Enemy difficulty seems mismatched with your crew (multiple psychic aliens on first level)
    - You spend so much time doing admin in your ship which takes forever, especially when you have to constantly try to skip through endless animations and cut scenes
    - The NPCs won't shut the f**k up
    - no controller support, rebinding keys is broken
    - difficult to keep track of things on the battlefield due to some poor colour variation

    Basically they have taken all the things that made enemy within/unknown good and buried it beneath layers and layers of pointless animations, cut scenes, loading screens. Its a bit like trying to watch a program on MTV. Its probably quite good but there is so much filler and padding it ends up being a waste of time.    … Expand
  21. Koelatath
    Feb 5, 2016
    0
    No thanks. Always hang the course after every motion of any character, even though the enemy, meditation games for about 1 minute. But at least it is. So even animation twitching all the time. What is very annoying. Drawdowns FPS 5-6 also enrage. problem even in the menu. Translations into other languages ​​are sometimes inaccurate, and the letters do not match the fonts. In multiplayer,No thanks. Always hang the course after every motion of any character, even though the enemy, meditation games for about 1 minute. But at least it is. So even animation twitching all the time. What is very annoying. Drawdowns FPS 5-6 also enrage. problem even in the menu. Translations into other languages ​​are sometimes inaccurate, and the letters do not match the fonts. In multiplayer, the fastest on the course of 45 seconds is as much as 6-10 minutes. And after a stroke can not even press the button, so you're foolish person waiting for the end of the course. So silly. Where optimization, hey? And the game has been tested on several PCs and a laptop. Everywhere it went very badly. The very same game and the plot is not bad ... but the same type and annoying timing that puts sometimes impossible mission. Oh, and random. Even on the easiest difficulty crit enemies that demolished my team for 2-3 turn. Thank you played.… Expand
  22. Skagi
    Feb 6, 2016
    0
    The game is FRUSTRATING. I can't help the feeling that the story is being forced upon me and I can't avoid it.
    So much time wasted because of some cut scenes / talking etc. XCOM Enemy Unknown was awesome, rules were laid out clearly in a few short steps. In XCOM 2 when I get to the fight I suddenly am stopped by some comment / objective spotted and I can't press escape to avoid it and    The game is FRUSTRATING. I can't help the feeling that the story is being forced upon me and I can't avoid it.
    So much time wasted because of some cut scenes / talking etc. XCOM Enemy Unknown was awesome, rules were laid out clearly in a few short steps. In XCOM 2 when I get to the fight I suddenly am stopped by some comment / objective spotted and I can't press escape to avoid it and continue playing, I have to wait. So far I dislike the campaign. I don't have the freedom I had in XCOM Enemy Unknown. THAT'S IRRITATING.    … Expand
  23. Paxton476
    Feb 21, 2016
    3
    Good points:
    Nice graphics and lots of potential for customization, particularly with mods.
    Bad points: Performance issues (lag, particularly in strategic mode ), which seem unrelated to another problem which is that the action is very poorly synchronized, with weird pauses after taking a shot and being spotted by an enemy, for example. Also several other minor bugs such as people    Good points:
    Nice graphics and lots of potential for customization, particularly with mods.

    Bad points:
    Performance issues (lag, particularly in strategic mode ), which seem unrelated to another problem which is that the action is very poorly synchronized, with weird pauses after taking a shot and being spotted by an enemy, for example. Also several other minor bugs such as people shooting through cover/away from target.
    Beyond these presumably fixable issues is an underlying repetitiveness in the game design that gets tedious fairly fast and may not necessarily be saved by modders.    … Expand
  24. quikesan
    Nov 25, 2017
    1
    Frustrating. That's the word that describes the game.
    I loved the first original Xcom, liked very much the Firaxis Xcom reboot.
    This one is not fun to play. The strategy tries to be the same as the original: research, build, so on. But in this case it doesn't make much sense. Excavate the ship to make more rooms? Why? Because the construction system has to be the same but this time    Frustrating. That's the word that describes the game.
    I loved the first original Xcom, liked very much the Firaxis Xcom reboot.
    This one is not fun to play. The strategy tries to be the same as the original: research, build, so on. But in this case it doesn't make much sense. Excavate the ship to make more rooms? Why? Because the construction system has to be the same but this time inside a ship, not a base?
    The interface is messy and you don't really understand the mechanics of what is going on. What do I have to scan? Do the missions on the map disappear? What is scanning the base for? Why there are
    The combat gets screwed because of the short limit times on most of the missions. Conceal is pretty useless because you have to rush to whatever you have to deactivate.
    With the DLC you get new enemies, but the Kings are ABSURDLY overpowered, and it's totally absurd that apparently they appear in missions randomly.
    I just cant keep going. Screw this game.    … Expand
  25. Kif1983
    Dec 11, 2019
    3
    You're gonna want to mod it. It's painfully difficult at the expense of being fun or interesting.

    I started playing on normal, after 5 or so missions I switched to rookie, then a couple more levels later I installed mods. As an example, a mere 5 missions in, a special type of alien pops up. He has armor (limiting your damage), 50 or so health (compared to most mobs 8), plus, every    You're gonna want to mod it. It's painfully difficult at the expense of being fun or interesting.

    I started playing on normal, after 5 or so missions I switched to rookie, then a couple more levels later I installed mods.

    As an example, a mere 5 missions in, a special type of alien pops up. He has armor (limiting your damage), 50 or so health (compared to most mobs 8), plus, every time your characters do something, it gets a full turn. So:
    Character A moves
    It got a turn
    Character A shoots
    It got a turn
    Character B moves
    It got a turn etc

    Because it appeared after a number of previous fights, and I had an objective to deal with, on normal difficulty, it wiped me out before it even got to its actual official turn.

    The next frustrating thing was that a lot of the missions have a turn limit. It's harsh, what it means is rather than thinking and strategizing like you would in the previous titles. You're just running for the goal and hoping someone survives.

    The final frustrating thing is that the game pretends like you have agency, but the moment you say 'ignore' on one of its incredibly frequent pop up missions, (maybe because your soldiers are wounded), it brings up a big read message saying we recommend you don't ignore this, if you do it's gonna ruin your game. It's deviously linear.

    So, mod it to remove / increase turns, mod it to make aiming a bit better, mod it give those boss creatures normal turns... then, you might actually have fun... and, if you don't save scum, it'll still be a challenge; just not a painful one.

    Score is based on the game without mods.    … Expand
  26. Dethstar
    Feb 16, 2016
    4
    I want to like this. It isnt terrible but far from satisfying. They learned nothing from the last one.

    The pros. Still, it is Xcom. Sort of. It looks pretty. Has a nice idea behind it in some elements. Personally, I have never experienced any crashes The cons. This is more strategy than luck. Core mechanics appear to be broken. (ie. Line of sight is really botched, some odd    I want to like this. It isnt terrible but far from satisfying. They learned nothing from the last one.

    The pros.
    Still, it is Xcom. Sort of.
    It looks pretty.
    Has a nice idea behind it in some elements.
    Personally, I have never experienced any crashes

    The cons.
    This is more strategy than luck.

    Core mechanics appear to be broken. (ie. Line of sight is really botched, some odd things happen, at times, the engine itself appears confused.

    I have had an alien run at my squad where they were on overwatch with high percentage chances. They all miss their shots. This is not unusual and the maths does not stack up.

    I have also hit an alien expecting 3 damage (as indicated) and done 7. It doesn't fill you with confidence that the game is ok.

    The odds are very stacked against you which makes it challenging unless your playing on very easy mode. However, what make the game annoying is that the missions are insanely repetitive. Some similarity would be understandable but it is so limited it is ridiculous.

    Worst of all, the missions are in the main time limited so its more a of run through, keep repeating until you get lucky and do it again. Very little strategy involved and at times, it is simply like repeatedly rolling the dice hoping that the line of sight doesn't botch and nothing weird happens until it works out. It isn't fun.

    The Global strategic outlout is very much the same. You are not choosing where you go, the game is really telling you what you need to do and giving a very poor illusion of choice.

    Runs very badly indeed. This is not subjective, I have extremely high 3d mark scores and spend a lot of time and effort building my PC;s (not to mention cash) My Titan X's are running at 1550-1600 during gaming and the CPU 4.7ghz (hexacore) yet the game though smooth doesn't run well. It feels like console port in terms of not being happy with hardware and seemingly not using properly. I see this seems to be across a wide range of builds.    … Expand
  27. theandersons18
    Apr 24, 2016
    1
    There really isn't anything good to say about this game. I very much regret buying it. All the strategy elements have been stripped away in favor of what can only be a future iPhone port. Almost every single mission is now artificially shortened by a forced turn timer that leaves absolutely no time to finish the objective. While I'm sure this length of level would be perfect for playing onThere really isn't anything good to say about this game. I very much regret buying it. All the strategy elements have been stripped away in favor of what can only be a future iPhone port. Almost every single mission is now artificially shortened by a forced turn timer that leaves absolutely no time to finish the objective. While I'm sure this length of level would be perfect for playing on the bus or waiting at the DMV, but as a tactical game it falls very short of what people want. The game play now is painfully frustrating as you are sprinting to the other side of the map to finish the objective and then to the evac site all while dodging through hidden groups of enemies. People will claim realism or whatever else to defend this failed game but honestly we are to assume they started deleting files before they knew we even got there or were about to finish uploading data minutes before the team arrived? This game seems to have ran out of ways to challenge players and just resorted to cheating enemies, a shoddy RNG and very very very limited time to muddle through their cheap levels. I simply cannot express how much I dislike this game. I wouldn't wish this game on my worst enemy, please please do not support these developers. They've destroyed the series in favor a future iPhone game. There are much better, less frustrating games out there more deserving of support.… Expand
  28. shag00
    Apr 13, 2016
    3
    The technical issues with this game are terrible, that said, as for the game itself, so much time is spent watching crappy animations that it almost becomes boring playing the game. After every mission several minutes are wasted just waiting until you can do something.

    I wonder how this is never mentioned by the, and I use the term loosely, professional game reviewers. Sitting at your    The technical issues with this game are terrible, that said, as for the game itself, so much time is spent watching crappy animations that it almost becomes boring playing the game. After every mission several minutes are wasted just waiting until you can do something.

    I wonder how this is never mentioned by the, and I use the term loosely, professional game reviewers. Sitting at your PC playing for 10 minutes and watching cut scenes for 3 minutes is not enjoyable.    … Expand
  29. malcolmm
    Jan 18, 2017
    4
    So many issues with this game, I'm glad I only paid $12 for it from Humble Bundle. As usual for a AAA title the "professional" reviews rate the game much higher than the general public.

    First off, the tutorial is terrible, pretty much completely useless. It hardly merits being called a tutorial, it is just a short mission with a few prompts. It misses many important parts of the mission    So many issues with this game, I'm glad I only paid $12 for it from Humble Bundle. As usual for a AAA title the "professional" reviews rate the game much higher than the general public.

    First off, the tutorial is terrible, pretty much completely useless. It hardly merits being called a tutorial, it is just a short mission with a few prompts. It misses many important parts of the mission interface. As for the rest of the game, good luck, no tutorial for what to do back at the base. I did play the previous XCOM but that was years ago, I've forgotten pretty much everything about the game. There is a manual but it is useless, it just repeats what the equally useless tutorial tells you.

    Most of the game consists of video sequences, it is obvious where most of the budget went. The missions themselves are extremely simple yet very frustrating. Still the same over emphasis on luck. Making most of the missions timed was a huge mistake, you mostly have to rush the target with little time for tactics.

    I normally don't buy AAA titles, mostly boring graphics showcases. XCOM2 is a prime example of this, all flash but no substance. Microprose did it so much better, Firaxis has managed to ruin both XCOM and Civilization.    … Expand
  30. Sugminfeta
    Mar 2, 2016
    3
    Xcom 2 is bad all the way!

    Rant start: Its stressful, buggy, glitched & bad cheating ai on harder legend mode. Do NOT buy this if you hate things above. And why the time limits on almost every missions?? Idiotic is what it is. Also let me explain what I mean with ai cheating on Legend mode. Why dont just put in more & harder enemys. No they instead put ai that hits    Xcom 2 is bad all the way!

    Rant start:

    Its stressful, buggy, glitched & bad cheating ai on harder legend mode.

    Do NOT buy this if you hate things above.

    And why the time limits on almost every missions??
    Idiotic is what it is.

    Also let me explain what I mean with ai cheating on Legend mode.
    Why dont just put in more & harder enemys.

    No they instead put ai that hits through full cover half the map away.

    Ai that stays right out of your line of sight if your hole squad is on overwatch.
    Sneaks in perfect & stops before your guys get off a shot, even if they dont see my guys, bs that crap!

    Just make the ai with more life & more of them instead of stupid cheating ****

    Also I have completed the game on classic & that was way to easy but the ai didnt cheat at least!
    But the ai is really stupid, so thats why Fireaxis have too cheat on legend mode because they cant make the ai good enough!

    Fireaxis, kick your ai & graphics dudes, they all did a bad job on this game!

    Burp, (wait will get another beer)

    Where was I?? Ehh, fu it..

    Rant over:

    End    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best PC Game of 2016
6
#6 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
19
#19 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
88

Generally favorable reviews - based on 104 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 97 out of 104
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 104
  3. Negative: 1 out of 104
  1. Wccftech
    Apr 22, 2016
    80
    Firaxis managed to improve upon the already great Enemy Unknown in almost every way, with the exception of multiplayer. Unfortunately, the shockingly bad performance prevents XCOM 2 from reaching the status of a true masterpiece.
    Read full review
  2. High-Def Digest
    Apr 10, 2016
    90
    It is a tactical experience without peer, better even than its predecessors. It is draining and agonizing, but in a good way. The high difficulty may turn off some gamers, but it’s worth every second.
    Read full review
  3. IGN Denmark
    Apr 6, 2016
    90
    XCOM 2 is a gem. There is more story in the game, and the ending does not feel as abrupt as it did in the first game.
    Read full review
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