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. TemplarGR
    Sep 18, 2016
    4
    I was very dissapointed by this game. I am a fun of the original XCOM games, and i played them to death as a kid. Especially Apocalypse, which in my personal opinion is the best of the franchise to date. I played the first game from 2K and while it was very "streamlined" (aka dumbed down), i kinda liked it. Not the best, but certainly a worthwhile experience for a playthrough or two.I was very dissapointed by this game. I am a fun of the original XCOM games, and i played them to death as a kid. Especially Apocalypse, which in my personal opinion is the best of the franchise to date. I played the first game from 2K and while it was very "streamlined" (aka dumbed down), i kinda liked it. Not the best, but certainly a worthwhile experience for a playthrough or two.

    So, i was expecting to like this one as well, and i was VERY disappointed. At launch it was a broken mess, with ton of bugs, ran like sh1t on perfectly capable hardware. It is somewhat fixed today, with far better performance and not that many game-breaking bugs. Still, i don't understand why it has those steep hardware requirements. I am playing it at max settings and it doesn't look that much better compared to the first XCOM.

    As for the game, it is more or less the same thing, with more timers on missions and other minor changes and additions of some new enemies. Again, the changes are welcome, but insignificant. I believe Enemy Within expansion was a larger improvement to Enemy Uknown, than the sequel. And that says a lot.

    It is not a bad game by any means, but it is not a good one either. I am feeling cheated by this. You are better off just playing Enemy Within again. It is cheaper, more feature complete, requires a far cheaper computer to run it, and you won't notice much of a difference anyway.

    All in all, 4.    … Expand
  2. rbx775
    Dec 22, 2018
    2
    Amateurish crap, like the first xcom remake.
    I really love the artstyle though, it has a stylistic element to it which make the graphics both very readable and characteristic! GJ Artdirector!
    Also leveldesign & audiodesign seems to be well done. The gameplay let me down though, simply because it seems to rubberband you out of your silliest decisions. (maybe even your smartest, cant    Amateurish crap, like the first xcom remake.
    I really love the artstyle though, it has a stylistic element to it which make the graphics both very readable and characteristic! GJ Artdirector!
    Also leveldesign & audiodesign seems to be well done.

    The gameplay let me down though, simply because it seems to rubberband you out of your silliest decisions. (maybe even your smartest, cant tell... ;P )
    => was surrounded by 4 aliens upclose and they werent able to kill me after even 6 attempts.
    I made stupid choices => didnt die => deinstalled Xcom2.

    Hate rubber-banding whatever the inclination.
    rubber-banding isnt a sign of smart gamedesign, its a sign of stupid audience. You Loser.    … Expand
  3. denissix
    Jan 3, 2021
    0
    XCOM 2 is unbalanced piece of s.... DLC Bosses with three life strips for first-level soldiers is "nice". The game is going too fast, very few resources. Improvements are very expensive. The Avatar project... who invented it?
    Max honest rate no more 75. Bad job Firaxis
  4. Shatter77
    Dec 29, 2016
    3
    I'm not sure I can finish this game, because it has decided to crash again and again in the same place. Load, do a few moves, quickly save before it crashes may yet get me out oft his crash fest. Nearly a year old, and the game being in this state is unconscionable.

    Further boatload of criticism: - This game is essentially the same as Enemy Unknown: the mechanics are virtually    I'm not sure I can finish this game, because it has decided to crash again and again in the same place. Load, do a few moves, quickly save before it crashes may yet get me out oft his crash fest. Nearly a year old, and the game being in this state is unconscionable.

    Further boatload of criticism:

    - This game is essentially the same as Enemy Unknown: the mechanics are virtually identical.
    - Enemies are still grouped in mobs that get interrupt moves as you discover them, regardless of whether they can see you. Normally turn based games have an initiative stat to govern who goes first. Not here and it practically forces you to try to set up ambushes by reloading then preventing triggering seeing the mob before you are ready.
    - Game play is largely a matter of luck. I do not believe anyone can play this game to the end without relying on save/reload a lot.
    - Wounded team members are out of action for up to a month, which is extremely long.
    - It's extremely easy for your soldiers to die, and extremely time consuming to level them up. I've been playing for 40 hours and more or less just got a few colonel level soldiers. I doubt it's possible to lose a colonel, then level up a replacement before the game ends. So, lose a soldier and you're practically forced to reload.
    - A clock is ticking on the campaign map and nearly every mission also has a turn limit on it. So you are forced to take risks and push forward in a game that ruthlessly punishes that very behaviour.
    - The mouse interface is an insulting afterthought. Drag the world map, and pass an interactive icon will trigger that icon.
    - Did I mention the interface is atrocious?
    - Your base interface has you step through multiple layers with camera swivels in between all the time. Dizzying, useless. Slow.
    - The interface does nothing to help you select the best equipment for your current team, as wounded soldiers are rotated out. In one screen the "make weapons available" button is not there. Mostly those buttons don't even work. Prepare to spend several hours of your playtime hunting for that piece of armour or that weapon that's not on any of the selected soldiers.    … Expand
  5. qrooel
    Mar 13, 2020
    0
    Timers in almost every mission. TBS with timers. Game is nearly unplayable because of this. No fun at all. Frustrating game ever.
  6. TheFrog
    Oct 26, 2019
    1
    Picture ugly-drawn graphics straight out of the PS2 era, and micro levels that still take longer to load than a sprawling open world with 100x the detail (my gods, loading takes AGES).
    The game consists of a gauntlet where your soldiers face superior numbers of superior enemies with far superior combat capabilities. Your snipers will almost never hit anything and cannot see an enemy    Picture ugly-drawn graphics straight out of the PS2 era, and micro levels that still take longer to load than a sprawling open world with 100x the detail (my gods, loading takes AGES).
    The game consists of a gauntlet where your soldiers face superior numbers of superior enemies with far superior combat capabilities. Your snipers will almost never hit anything and cannot see an enemy furthe than 6 meters. Your gunner deals minimal damage. Your scout is pointless, for stealth only applies to your very first attack. The specialist will heal you once per mission. Meanwhile enemies reanimate the dead, panic your troops (this may also occur if one of your soldiers gets hit!), take control of your soldiers, turning them into enemies that fire on your own troops. They pull your soldiers in a death grip that damages them, keep dealing damage and takes them in the middle of the enemies.
    The enemy spots you during their turn? You are in trouble. You spot the enemy? They get a free turn allowing them to disperse and get to cover before you can do anything. After a mission, your soldiers will be wounded, shaken and whatnot, introducing more handicaps for the next.
    Hitting is based on a RNG, so you often miss three times in a row even with an 80% chance to hit. It’s ridiculously easy to lose a soldier, and you only have four.
    Shouldn’t games be fun?    … Expand
  7. Zahrada
    Apr 23, 2018
    2
    The game is surprisingly unatractive from the very start. The strategy element is hard to find. It all seems to happen on a predetermined route. The missions are not designed for strategy, but for the fastest way possible, which leaves no choice, but to advance the shortest and fastest way and simply rely on rng. It's probably the first UFO/XCOM game in last 24 years which I did not like.
  8. SRKNZ
    Aug 5, 2018
    4
    Take a mediocre game franchise and make it worse. That's my impression of XCom 2. The first series was marred by an overly linear controlling approach to base management which is perpetuated in the second game. The horrible GUI is back too with all its quirks and limitations in place. The horrible counter intuitive R&D system is there too and its as confusing and unclear what you areTake a mediocre game franchise and make it worse. That's my impression of XCom 2. The first series was marred by an overly linear controlling approach to base management which is perpetuated in the second game. The horrible GUI is back too with all its quirks and limitations in place. The horrible counter intuitive R&D system is there too and its as confusing and unclear what you are supposed to do as ever. To really show up the glaring shortcomings in the aforementioned a time restriction is imposed making the whole frustrating, joyless experience even more crapulent.

    In short for me there is very little to like here aside from the overriding theme that I felt has been better executed in other titles like Xenonaughts.

    The only upside is the eye candy but its this title is so hamstrung by its awkward and clumsy game mechanics its not enough to really amount to anything significant. Played for a short time and quickly lost interest.    … Expand
  9. nickdos
    Jan 22, 2018
    4
    There are a lot of bugs that remain from XCOM-EU and are because of the engine and persist with XCOM2.
    The game is unbalanced and ridiculous on higher difficulties because of the very short timers.
    I see the reason they added them, but they could do the same thing with a little more lax time frames. Shame that an amateur developer of a mod for EU can do a better job designing a tactical    There are a lot of bugs that remain from XCOM-EU and are because of the engine and persist with XCOM2.
    The game is unbalanced and ridiculous on higher difficulties because of the very short timers.
    I see the reason they added them, but they could do the same thing with a little more lax time frames.
    Shame that an amateur developer of a mod for EU can do a better job designing a tactical game than a AAA studio.    … Expand
  10. I3ordo
    Oct 4, 2021
    3
    Xcom is disbanded and what remains is a small faction and underdog!
    then WHY THE HELL the mission REQUIRES me to both rescue hostage, and then KILL ALL Remaining enemies on map? Why can't i get the hostage and F off? Cause , everybody calls you the "COMMANDER" but Firaxis is the actual commander and Demands you what do as exactly told and dont accept anything else.
    First game was    Xcom is disbanded and what remains is a small faction and underdog!
    then WHY THE HELL the mission REQUIRES me to both rescue hostage, and then KILL ALL Remaining enemies on map? Why can't i get the hostage and F off? Cause , everybody calls you the "COMMANDER" but Firaxis is the actual commander and Demands you what do as exactly told and dont accept anything else.

    First game was alright because it was based of some one else's work, now it s the second game and we all saw how moronic the melodies came out of their own guitar.    … Expand
  11. MusclePig
    Jul 24, 2021
    3
    Sometimes you can just tell when a game has been created with no love from the devs whatsoever. This was merely them doing their job.
  12. aimilios
    Aug 3, 2016
    4
    The game is simply too hard in normal mode (can't imagine more difficult settings). One can try more and more approaches by loading and try again, but at some point the game becomes unbeateable. If you even try to expand your team, there's not enough time to do it...
  13. PogoTime
    May 25, 2017
    4
    Why I bought the game: Because there were a lot of good reviews and a perma-death game normally is always a good challenge with its special feeling

    Why the game lost me: Most of the game is so heavy on RNG that this kills my immersion completely. I stopped counting the situations where i sneaked behind an enemy with a shotgun, got initiative; an still misses 100% of the shot. This is    Why I bought the game: Because there were a lot of good reviews and a perma-death game normally is always a good challenge with its special feeling

    Why the game lost me: Most of the game is so heavy on RNG that this kills my immersion completely. I stopped counting the situations where i sneaked behind an enemy with a shotgun, got initiative; an still misses 100% of the shot. This is just too much RNG for me standing 1m behind an enemy and missing with a shotgun....come on.

    And this situations can often lead to complete wipes or death of you teammates.

    This erased all the fun out of this game, cause you can be as good as you want, you will still get screwed by RNG.    … Expand
  14. apjs
    Jun 9, 2020
    1
    The game is much worse than Enemy Unknown - which I loved. The performance is very poor even if you run it on a gaming PC with very good hardware. The level design is not good. You can shoot and fight through solid walls, pick up squad mates from the other side of a wall etc. The voiceovers are completely random. You will ge the "running low on ammo" voiceover from a soldier with *full*The game is much worse than Enemy Unknown - which I loved. The performance is very poor even if you run it on a gaming PC with very good hardware. The level design is not good. You can shoot and fight through solid walls, pick up squad mates from the other side of a wall etc. The voiceovers are completely random. You will ge the "running low on ammo" voiceover from a soldier with *full* ammo. The difficulty is very weird. The normal missions are super easy even on the hardest difficulty. And then the final mission is barely beatable on normal difficulty. The problem is the difficulty spike at the end. Either make it continuously harder each mission or leave the difficulty the same. But it is very frustrating if you beat all regular missions on hard withe a flawless or excellent score and for the final mission, you barely beat it after reducing the settings to normal difficulty.… Expand
  15. RealPlayer666
    Nov 9, 2020
    4
    This game is bad. Strongly not recommended. Everything inside is like a one big script (even shooting). 80-95% to shoot a target and miss. Load and one more try... miss again. One more try miss again and over and over again. You can move and shoot but you can't shoot and move at start. Many pointless skills. X-COM extraterrestrial gold edition is much better then this game (2007). AnotherThis game is bad. Strongly not recommended. Everything inside is like a one big script (even shooting). 80-95% to shoot a target and miss. Load and one more try... miss again. One more try miss again and over and over again. You can move and shoot but you can't shoot and move at start. Many pointless skills. X-COM extraterrestrial gold edition is much better then this game (2007). Another game based on very good (legendary) title f...d up. Sad...… Expand
  16. Alexrouz
    Apr 21, 2022
    1
    I have played this game for over 50 hours. At first I loved this game for the setting, level design and soldiers, I considered this game to be good and that it would become one of my favorites even then. But with every 5 hours of playing, I learned how terrible the gameplay of the game is and that this is one of the worst games I have ever played. Spoilers are minimal. 1) Even afterI have played this game for over 50 hours. At first I loved this game for the setting, level design and soldiers, I considered this game to be good and that it would become one of my favorites even then. But with every 5 hours of playing, I learned how terrible the gameplay of the game is and that this is one of the worst games I have ever played. Spoilers are minimal. 1) Even after releasing a large-scale addition to the game, the developers did not remove the huge randomness in shooting, when the machine gunner at point-blank range in 1-2-3 cells has a low chance of hitting and how miserable it looks in the game when he misses a huge alien that is standing right in front of him. 2) Bugs. They are everywhere. Bugs with shooting animations, bugs when the game is paused when there is a lot of shooting from spectator modes, bugs with grenade explosions, bugs with the abilities of the chosen ones, bugs when using engineers in the power relay. What the developers were doing preparing the addition to the game is unclear. 3) Stealth. It doesn't work normally. When successfully using stealth and bypassing enemy points, patrols at some point begin to go towards the player for no reason, and this happens all the time during missions with penetration to specific points. No logic, no development. Complete failure of the mechanics. 4) The worst is the sequence of moves, which is not reset if you are given an additional move of the last soldier for killing (for example), but the game does not allow you to do this and at that moment a plot event occurs (for example, the resurrection of the chosen one) and the game takes your turn, making a full one progress in the opponent's event, and you get back your half-one move left only for moving. As a result, the enemy makes literally 2 moves, until you absolutely could not do anything and this one does not depend on you in any way. Worst turn based game design I've ever seen in the history of gaming. 5) There is absolutely no tactics. It all comes down to random whether the enemy will hit through the cover / pass the stun / miss. The computer opponent does both completely stupid actions and brilliant ones at the same time, absolutely killing all the seriousness of what is happening, which you look at with laughter. Perhaps this is normal if you play on a low difficulty and score on logic and realism, but this is not interesting for experienced players. 6) Terrible development of the fog of war, when, for example, the Wanderers are close to Advent (which they also attack as a player), but until you open the fog of war, they just stand still and do nothing. And as soon as you opened it, they begin to act and then ignore the fact that they are point-blank to the enemy. They begin to stupidly run around and it looks like a clownery. And such missions also start in stealth, which absolutely destroys your tactics, since they can accidentally run out at the moment the fog of war opens and run out to you (although they break down exactly on the opponent of Advent according to the mechanics of the game when you are still in stealth). Summing up, I will say that this is only part of the problems and not all that terrible that is in the game design of the game. The game has a lot more problems and is more offensive just because the game initially seems good due to the setting and the design of the squad with the levels of locations. To bury such potential with such terrible gameplay I have never seen. I don't recommend anyone to play this… Expand
  17. Shadowxxx
    Jan 13, 2023
    0
    disgusting trash disgusting trash disgusting trash disgusting trash disgusting trash
  18. Puppup
    Apr 14, 2022
    0
    Utter **** Controls are **** awful. no depth just full rush against turns all the time. cant spin the map or **** you chump. Even at £3 on steam or free on Epic its **** over priced. If you want cancer play this game.
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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

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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.
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  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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