XCOM 2

 PlayStation 4
User Score
7.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 518 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 332 out of 518
  2. Mixed: 93 out of 518
  3. Negative: 93 out of 518
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  1. kobb
    Oct 12, 2017
    4
    'Normal ' difficulty is next to unplayable. Meta Game has terrible pacing for events demanding that you react to a contstant stream rather than actually making choices and planning. Massive disappointment.

    Waste of time
  2. Hyde_333
    Jun 28, 2018
    2
    I really wanted this game to live up to the first, but I am afraid it severely disappoints on many different levels.

    First off the melee combat is broken, and enemies can stab your soldiers through solid walls. Secondly, the overwatch penalties are too severe (yet these penalties dont seem to apply to the aliens, who can hit you with an overwatch shot almost every time from 900 yards)    I really wanted this game to live up to the first, but I am afraid it severely disappoints on many different levels.

    First off the melee combat is broken, and enemies can stab your soldiers through solid walls.
    Secondly, the overwatch penalties are too severe (yet these penalties dont seem to apply to the aliens, who can hit you with an overwatch shot almost every time from 900 yards) making it a very ineffective skill.
    In fact, the luck element of this game is its most prominent feature, and with enemies that can move from invisible to within attacking range (and attack (kill) you) whilst you are still in your turn, there is a high chance your soldiers will get repeatedly ganked with no other option but to reload the turn now that you know where the enemies will be.

    Great game if you like watching 5 minute loading screens, not so much for balanced yet challenging turn-based combat like the first.

    Oh, and hitting the touchpad auto ends your turn, no warning or anything. It is ridiculously easy to do and normally means you have to reload the game, which is highly infuriating.

    Glad I got this game on PSplus and didn't actually pay any money for it, appalling sequel.    … Expand
  3. Volsyden
    Apr 29, 2019
    1
    I have played a lot of stupid games in my life... this is one of them... this game is stupid hard and the balance is extremely broken. it got it for free and i want my money back.
  4. Caputalis
    Jun 6, 2018
    4
    The biggest issue is easily the turn limits. It's been years since release, and they're still way too small and way too overused. It seems like a majority of missions have a turn limit, and this causes you so essentially toss out strategy and just rush to the objective. It's awful and pretty much ruins what I enjoyed about the previous game. It might as well just be called Turn Limit-ComThe biggest issue is easily the turn limits. It's been years since release, and they're still way too small and way too overused. It seems like a majority of missions have a turn limit, and this causes you so essentially toss out strategy and just rush to the objective. It's awful and pretty much ruins what I enjoyed about the previous game. It might as well just be called Turn Limit-Com 2. Ruins the game.… Expand
  5. warriorjoyaus
    Sep 12, 2019
    2
    Look it's a great game, but don't by it on the PS4.
    It crashes all the time, and the developer does not want to fix the problems.
    Buy it for the PC
  6. huiboy
    Mar 24, 2019
    4
    Probably a fun game. But game is not optimized at all on the PS4. Clunky controls, huge frame-rate lags, and begins to become excessively slow paced due to these malfunctions. The only game where i cannot put it the background while watching Netflix because it takes a huge toll on the system.
  7. Bioware-Critic
    Nov 17, 2020
    4
    XCOM 2 is a game of many, many flaws. Sadly. This could have very much gone in a better direction but the developers seem to not know the very meaning of the word - polish. Almost every aspect of the game feels unfinished and that it could have been two to three levels better if only a little more optimization and care would have gone into it.
    There is so much to criticise here ... I will    XCOM 2 is a game of many, many flaws. Sadly. This could have very much gone in a better direction but the developers seem to not know the very meaning of the word - polish. Almost every aspect of the game feels unfinished and that it could have been two to three levels better if only a little more optimization and care would have gone into it.
    There is so much to criticise here ... I will only touch on a few points and leave it at that. Otherwise I will go on a full-on nerd-rage!

    - The difficulty: There is none. I am not joking! The game is stupidly easy. What gets you though to tear out your own hair is how mind-numbingly unfair this game is pretty much in every situation and how little is explained. You are expected to make everything up as you go, probably even decide 90% of every decision to be made correctly and then fail regardless. You then will go forward a slow death you see not coming until it is too late and you have to start from 0. The very concept of the game seems to be ... "to **** all over the player and his/her dignity". It is quite intelligence-insulting. These unfair results you earn by doing mostly everything right are something you simply overcome and balance out on the tactical level and maybe not in the moment but as fast as you can. What you will not be able to balance out however, is that in the long term, on the strategic level, the game maneuvers you into a dead end if you play it for the first time AND YOU DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING until you simply are forced to give up!

    - The gameplay: The game gives you a lot of options but is otherwise very unimaginative. You are forced down every road you take and the freedom you have is pretty much impossible to enjoy since you are bombarded with a dozen things that ... have to be done "IMMEDIATELY or ELSE!" ... Seriously, I ask myself who is so lame and retarded to think of such idiotic ideas and think themselves to be creative? The balancing in this game seems to be done by breaking the "fourth-wall" and kicking the player in the crotch! You get punished for EVERYTHING. things you could never know will happen, things you did not know existed and things that will never be explained to you no matter what.

    - Performance: I have not have a single game on my PS4 which crashed so regularly. Especially not 3 years after release. Pretty embarrassing I would say. The engine performs horribly. Every turn the engine will produce bugs of various kinds, like actions not happening or animations and their respective sounds persisting forever and torture your ears! Or the camera angle will prevent you from seeing what you need to see and from reading what you need to read. It is quite the circus during the missions.

    If Firaxis really decides to make a third game they desperately need to get back to square one!!! ... at the drawing board. This title is a mess and quite literally all over the place. I don't care how many fans this series has. For a grown-up this product is a straight up INSULT!

    If you are a person who values his/her dignity, you should give this a wide birth. If you plan on buying it I would suggest you don't pay more than 5 bucks. I, myself would like nothing better than to get my money back. Since it is a bad habit of mine to build up a catalog of bought games which I play a good while AFTER I bought them this is not possible any longer.    … Expand
  8. Naiv
    Feb 12, 2017
    6
    Love this game, better than the previous in a lot of respects, however theirs a lot of pop in graphics after a load and those loading times are really long, i have noticed a few glitches and bugs some of which helped me out in the game, but others which just took the realism away, theirs no explination in the game to how to play or how thigns work in detial, apart from tips in a loadingLove this game, better than the previous in a lot of respects, however theirs a lot of pop in graphics after a load and those loading times are really long, i have noticed a few glitches and bugs some of which helped me out in the game, but others which just took the realism away, theirs no explination in the game to how to play or how thigns work in detial, apart from tips in a loading screen, where it is too small to even see. the game on the easiest setting feels way too hard, and i cant help but feel that the game is very unbalanced and not at all fair. i feel like theirs not enough explained to me about how the game works, sure i get theirs consequnces and time and resources matter and you can lose out, but to what extreme, and to what detrement to my playthrough, its trial and error and one playthrough of a long ass game that loads slowly just to get the jist is not good enough, especilly when its a game you save and reload constantly which is what ppl do.… Expand
  9. Lonit
    Sep 16, 2019
    2
    the timer in single player is really a deal breaker, it's so peopl don't take the time to get overpowered but it just adds too much stress, can't get the things done.
  10. Bulbotrax
    Jun 16, 2018
    0
    probablly one of the most irritating game ever made... everything is bad in this crappy piece of garbage... All of the worst ideas are in this thing... The timer on every phases, congratulations... it is the dumbest idead ever...
  11. KAKAOSKOS
    Sep 3, 2017
    1
    Had fun at first, but then small bugs began to appear before my ironman run save file got deleted. This was right before Fireaxis openly stated that they will not be patching Xcom2 anymore... Fine, so I began a normal run, just to get some value back at least, but now suddenly the playstation 4 console freeze entirely whenever I startup the game.. This is a huge disappointment and wouldn'tHad fun at first, but then small bugs began to appear before my ironman run save file got deleted. This was right before Fireaxis openly stated that they will not be patching Xcom2 anymore... Fine, so I began a normal run, just to get some value back at least, but now suddenly the playstation 4 console freeze entirely whenever I startup the game.. This is a huge disappointment and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.… Expand
  12. MagVinAnc
    Mar 15, 2018
    6
    These turn based strategy games, i despise almost every single aspect of it. And that's just my opinion. It is so dumb that in a bloody war against aliens, the dudes just stands still and watches them get hit, and the scream. It doesn't make any logical sense.
    Anyway this game makes you feel skilled and rewarded when you lay out a good strategic, and kill a bunch of aliens. This feels    These turn based strategy games, i despise almost every single aspect of it. And that's just my opinion. It is so dumb that in a bloody war against aliens, the dudes just stands still and watches them get hit, and the scream. It doesn't make any logical sense.
    Anyway this game makes you feel skilled and rewarded when you lay out a good strategic, and kill a bunch of aliens. This feels amazing.
    I do think that the best thing about the game is how you can develop your own characters, and make their own bio fx. This makes you feel committed to your soldiers, which is a big thrill on the battlefield, and care about them.

    6/10, just because it's a turn based strategy game.    … Expand
  13. Wolowizard
    Dec 20, 2019
    6
    As omeone who really loved the last Xcom Enemy Unknwon/ Within, this game was kind of a dissapointment.

    The devs didnt like how most players played very defensively in the last game and mostly set up overwatch traps to deal with enemys, so they did everything they could to prevent you from playing like that. The issue is, that the game punishes you at the same time for actually playing    As omeone who really loved the last Xcom Enemy Unknwon/ Within, this game was kind of a dissapointment.

    The devs didnt like how most players played very defensively in the last game and mostly set up overwatch traps to deal with enemys, so they did everything they could to prevent you from playing like that. The issue is, that the game punishes you at the same time for actually playing aggressively, but also for playing defensively.

    If you try to move too far around the enemy to flank them, you will most likely just trigger previously unseen enemy units, which are going to flank you on the next round in return, if you play too defensively, the timer will run out and you automatically failed the mission for playing like your used to.

    The classes also havent changed too drastically from the previous game, the medics can heal over a bigger distance, or use drones to deal damage or potentially hack robotic enemys, heavys can shoot multiple grenades and Snipers can focus either on using their handgun more often, or being actually even more stationary than before, while dealing alot of damage.

    The only class that has actually undergone any changes to actually support a more upfront approach is the ranger, who can know melee attack enemys, but thats a very high risk, high reward thing.

    The RNG also feels more rigged than ever, in MULTIPLE missions I had MULTIPLE 80+% shots that missed, either the game is bugged or just lies to you, we all know about the 99% shots missing in EU meme, but this game take the cake for missing shots.

    So overall its just like EW, but worse and taken into a really weird direction, I heard that the devs worked together with the guys behind the long war mod for the previous game, the mod is kinda infamous for being very difficult, so I guess hats where the inspiration came from, unles youre a masochist, I wouldnt recommend this one to fans of the previous Xcom.    … Expand
  14. Jebb333
    Jun 22, 2020
    9
    Loved the mechanics and honestly is a super fun game to play. It’s definitely hard at first but once you get used to it it’s addicting. The customization options are pretty awesome
  15. SidW
    Jul 3, 2020
    1
    1. Heavy loading
    2. Extremely bad balance, extremely hard, making players to load a lot
    3. Suspicious rate of action. When rate of hacking is 53%, after trying over ten times, none was successful. You know, this situation will happen only at 0.47^10, I.e. 0.05%. Can’t trust the rate or this dishonest game maker anymore. 4. Stupid bugs. One of my teammate was blocked from entering the new    1. Heavy loading
    2. Extremely bad balance, extremely hard, making players to load a lot
    3. Suspicious rate of action. When rate of hacking is 53%, after trying over ten times, none was successful. You know, this situation will happen only at 0.47^10, I.e. 0.05%. Can’t trust the rate or this dishonest game maker anymore. 4. Stupid bugs. One of my teammate was blocked from entering the new area. So in every new turn, I need to order him to stay without doing anything. Auto-save should happen in my turn but after loading some auto-save, enemies came. Etc.
    5.Worldview and art are good. 1 score for that.    … Expand
  16. Oldschoolgamers
    Nov 22, 2021
    0
    I was a newcomer to your game. I was at a loss as far as what difficulty to start out with as I don't like things too easy but yet I like a challenge. From my research online I figured it would be best to stay away from commander mode. If only i knew at the time how great of a decision that was. When I started playing the 1st couple of missions I was surprised at how easy it was forI was a newcomer to your game. I was at a loss as far as what difficulty to start out with as I don't like things too easy but yet I like a challenge. From my research online I figured it would be best to stay away from commander mode. If only i knew at the time how great of a decision that was. When I started playing the 1st couple of missions I was surprised at how easy it was for enemies to detect me and it seemed like when I had a 70% chance to hit an enemy I would miss more than I should on normal, still I continued to play. And I kept having to reload saved missions constantly because the enemy's line of sight confused me greatly as sometimes even when I would have complete line of sight on enemies, there would be still some squares that I would step on which did not indicate the enemies could see me but yet when I stepped on them they could see me and forced me to have to redo the whole turn. And they would almost always have to turn around to notice me. I guess the aliens in this game have eyes in the back of their head and can see all around them all the time. Also it seems like whenever yellow items were dropped that I could confiscate from the mission, it was always be in places where enemies were alerted to me immediately no matter what square I hit. I started looking up recommended research and skill recommendations and still was just barely getting through the missions but I hoped that after a few more it'd get easier. The last mission I played I had this one dead to rights with an 80% chance for 2 people on my squad, both missed, the only way I was able to kill the enemy is by throwing a grenade which was a for sure hit but luckily he just had 3 health. At the end of this mission on the map it loaded the avatar which in 12 squares would be completed, 3 squares filled immediately. I was a bit surprised but figured I would just have to huff it to try to find it before it was completed. Then I proceeded to the next mission. At the screen I noticed that 2 of my squad was missing. I had 2 of them severely wounded during the last mission but managed to get them healed back to full health before the mission cleared. Turns out that's not how this game works at least on normal mode. One of them was Jane Kelly and the other was my grenader. I had a backup ranger that I was using that was just 1 level behind her so I figured I could just substitute him for her but then I noticed that he was gone from my recruit screen for the mission so I went back and looked through my roster on the ship and he was nowhere to be found. I even checked the memorial area even though I knew he was not dead and the only 2 listed were the 2 that died at the beginning of the game. I figured it might have been a bug so I shut the game off and reloaded and unfortunately he was still missing. This was the final straw as he was a strong character and to start over with someone new was just too much so I shut the game off and probably will not play it again. Firaxis is coming out with a game called 'Midnight 'Suns' and I'm very intrigued about this as it has 2 my favorite marvel characters 'Blade' and 'Ghost Rider' but I hope that they will not do the same thing with that game as this 1. I know that it is difficult to find the balance difficulty wise between people that like to be pushed to the brink and people that liked to be held by the hand and you also have to find that balance in the middle for people like me but yet I feel like you did not do a good enough job with this game and I hope that you do not repeat it with 'Midnight Suns'.… Expand
  17. OortCloud
    Jan 2, 2017
    3
    I played and loved all the original XCOMS plus the first reboot and loved them. I've played this for 20 hours now and am going to sell it because...

    1) Load times are huge. 2) The campaign map is a confusing mess of poorly described events etc. 3) Its way too difficult, requiring constant reloads (remember 1 people). 4) Most missions have very brief time limits meaning you must    I played and loved all the original XCOMS plus the first reboot and loved them. I've played this for 20 hours now and am going to sell it because...

    1) Load times are huge.
    2) The campaign map is a confusing mess of poorly described events etc.
    3) Its way too difficult, requiring constant reloads (remember 1 people).
    4) Most missions have very brief time limits meaning you must charge about. This makes the slow tactical overwatch-style assaults often impossible.
    5) Avatar project and dark events nonsense seems unavoidable,so you never feel like you are doing very well or have any kind of control - even though you save and reload 15 times until you get lucky on every mission and get out alive. (again remember 1).
    Really disappointed, another great franchise milked dry.    … Expand
  18. GlobalNightmare
    Nov 30, 2017
    4
    Enemy unknown was a fantastic game. Though not being the greatest player of turn-based strategy titles, I made it through to the end, and enjoyed every minute.
    I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered the sequel would be coming to the PS4. It was an instant-buy, no question about it.
    My excitement soon turned to disappointment however, upon experiencing the harsh, unforgiving    Enemy unknown was a fantastic game. Though not being the greatest player of turn-based strategy titles, I made it through to the end, and enjoyed every minute.
    I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered the sequel would be coming to the PS4. It was an instant-buy, no question about it.
    My excitement soon turned to disappointment however, upon experiencing the harsh, unforgiving difficulty. It was then that I realized that this game was not designed for me, or indeed a wider audience of gamers. It has seemingly been designed for hardcore xcom players only.
    I looked at my "Demon's souls" platinum trophy in disbelief; this game is too hard. Way too hard for the casual gamer, or novices of the genre. Even on the easiest difficulty setting. There's too much stacked against you here.
    My biggest problem is the inclusion of timed missions. Time limits in strategy games are never a good thing as far as I'm concerned. People want to play at their own pace. They don't want to feel rushed, or shoved head-first into a horde of enemies before they can plan or think. There's RTS's for that.
    I constantly felt outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered at every turn. Shouting at the television in anger as a 90% hit chance misses an enemy, yet again. I found myself constantly reloading my last save in an attempt to keep my soldiers from dying, but becoming frustrated as the lengthy load times here are an absolute joke.
    Eventually, I'd had enough. The aliens can keep the Earth. Its not worth my sanity. I'll go back to "darkest dungeon" for my strategy fix. The bad outweighs the good here, which is a huge shame as I loved the original, and there's so many good inclusions to the gameplay and presentation here worth talking about, but I just cant enjoy any of it to care. Its just too hard, and too frustrating.
    For hardcore xcom players ONLY.    … Expand
  19. Wigglesbury
    Oct 21, 2016
    2
    I really wanted to love this game. From UFO Defense to the new Enemy Unknown I've played them all over and over, and although the games have gotten worse over time, this one is the bottom so far. The idea is solid, and the research and engineering is good. Combat is cool, aliens are well designed. Even the learning curve for combat is excellent. The game itself is a buggy mess. It freezes,I really wanted to love this game. From UFO Defense to the new Enemy Unknown I've played them all over and over, and although the games have gotten worse over time, this one is the bottom so far. The idea is solid, and the research and engineering is good. Combat is cool, aliens are well designed. Even the learning curve for combat is excellent. The game itself is a buggy mess. It freezes, crashes, Ironman is almost unplayable. Near the end of the game I'm seeing a consistent 2-3 minute load screen after a level, followed by another screen with a mission summary with loading again. I might be a bit biased because I think the first few games killed the idea of overwhelming alien superiority and sent you into combat with 14 soldiers against 4 aliens and it was a tough go. Now alien superiority is 4 of you rolling 11 aliens right off the hop and it keeps getting easier. Anyway, all said and done, gameplay is solid, graphics are alright-ish with terrible collision and clipping problems, and wait times are disgusting.… Expand
  20. Schplatt
    Nov 19, 2017
    4
    Could have been a great xcom game, but the turn limits ruin nearly every level. If it’s not a turn limit, then it is some enemy destroying some equipment in a few turn, that you need to advance.

    It almost seems like they ran out of time to make this game entertaining, and just slapped some cheap time/turn limits on. I love all other aspects of the game, but could never finish it due    Could have been a great xcom game, but the turn limits ruin nearly every level. If it’s not a turn limit, then it is some enemy destroying some equipment in a few turn, that you need to advance.

    It almost seems like they ran out of time to make this game entertaining, and just slapped some cheap time/turn limits on.

    I love all other aspects of the game, but could never finish it due to these ‘features’. Deleted the game, and regret spending money on it. Without the limits, this game would easily be a ‘9 out of 10’.    … Expand
  21. nickojeda612
    Jul 15, 2017
    4
    Really fun game to play but way too difficult and relentless even on the rookie setting. I spent a ton of hours just trying to get by certain levels just to have my character one shotted by a boss or to have them crippled for a whole month. The gameplay is great, the story is interesting, character creation is fun, I enjoyed the time between missions, but the only thing I couldn't standReally fun game to play but way too difficult and relentless even on the rookie setting. I spent a ton of hours just trying to get by certain levels just to have my character one shotted by a boss or to have them crippled for a whole month. The gameplay is great, the story is interesting, character creation is fun, I enjoyed the time between missions, but the only thing I couldn't stand was how difficult it was to win a battle. NOT TO MENTION THE HIT RATES THAT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! It was the vipers and their tongues that could go through walls and over buildings that ruined the game for me.… Expand
  22. Moonfear
    Jun 5, 2018
    0
    This game is extremely dumbed down compared to original X-COM games, thanks got that it is part of PS+ and no money spent. And time limited mission? Good night tactics, time is running out.
  23. BigTrustBoi
    Jun 16, 2018
    4
    Well, the xcom combat and base building are still fun, I have one major gripe with the game that ruined my enjoyment. The whole Avatar project timer is some of the worse game design I have ever encountered. The fact that you need a resource (intel) to even try and do the missions is idiotic. I got to a point where I had no way of getting intel for a month so I could do absolutely nothingWell, the xcom combat and base building are still fun, I have one major gripe with the game that ruined my enjoyment. The whole Avatar project timer is some of the worse game design I have ever encountered. The fact that you need a resource (intel) to even try and do the missions is idiotic. I got to a point where I had no way of getting intel for a month so I could do absolutely nothing to make progress. So I lost about 15 hours in despite getting excellent/ flawless on every mission because the games mission structure and economy is broken. Just let me play some **** missions to progress the story once in a while, how hard is that. Additionally, the game is still buggy and has suspect load times at best especially for the type of game we are talking about. Overall very frustrated with the changes they made over xcom 1 which I enjoyed much more.… Expand
  24. Incubation
    Jan 22, 2017
    0
    Buggy as hell, takes an age to load, frustrating gameplay that requires save/loading frequently, stupidly difficult. Play the original much more fun and better gameplay.
  25. Dattwood7
    Sep 27, 2016
    10
    If you liked XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within, you'll like this game. You might have to get used to the new classes (the biggest change, in my opinion), but there are enough improvements in this game to win you over (one of the biggest is undoubtedly the improved character customization options: You'll get so attached to your crew you'll want to restart every time one of them gets hurt.) ThereIf you liked XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within, you'll like this game. You might have to get used to the new classes (the biggest change, in my opinion), but there are enough improvements in this game to win you over (one of the biggest is undoubtedly the improved character customization options: You'll get so attached to your crew you'll want to restart every time one of them gets hurt.) There might be some bugs, and you might gripe about some other little things, but the core game is there. This is an excellent strategy game, simple as that.… Expand
  26. thj1188
    Oct 8, 2016
    5
    I wish we had more strategy games on console. Enjoyed it as much as the original xcom but as the original on console it is littered with graphical glitches slow down also had to sit through some cut scenes twice as they repeated for some reason and multiple crashes. Lost progress from crashes is generally minimal due to the auto save but it is unacceptable. If a game can not be portedI wish we had more strategy games on console. Enjoyed it as much as the original xcom but as the original on console it is littered with graphical glitches slow down also had to sit through some cut scenes twice as they repeated for some reason and multiple crashes. Lost progress from crashes is generally minimal due to the auto save but it is unacceptable. If a game can not be ported properly it should not be ported. Due to these problems and my personal scoring system I can not rate it higher than a 5.… Expand
  27. Eretik
    Nov 2, 2016
    0
    This game is not playable on PS4 due to terrible loading time 1:30 - 1:40 required to load your save! Unbelievable, just unbelievable. XCom 2 is strategy games and save/load is the only method to understand complicated game mechanics. Unfortunately for us, in XCom2 your gameplay almost exclusively consists from loading screen.

    Also random crashes are quite annoying.
  28. phoeniix23
    Jun 24, 2018
    1
    I remembered having a blast playing Xcom1 on PC. Finished the whole game and it was such a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

    So I was super happy to get Xcom2 on PS+ in June 2018. It started out great, just like how I remembered Xcom1 was. I was even impressed that it worked well on console as I thought the gameplay would be clunky without a mouse. However, after spending about 4-5    I remembered having a blast playing Xcom1 on PC. Finished the whole game and it was such a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

    So I was super happy to get Xcom2 on PS+ in June 2018. It started out great, just like how I remembered Xcom1 was. I was even impressed that it worked well on console as I thought the gameplay would be clunky without a mouse.

    However, after spending about 4-5 play sessions amounting to around 10hrs of gameplay, I was ready to throw my controller at the screen and one of my veins was about to burst. Xcom2 is crazy infuriating. I'm not a noob, and I'm not new to strategy games. The level of frustration in Xcom2 though was something I didn't expect. Bloodborne is fair. You know th mistakes were yours. Even Xcom1, I knew I made mistakes when I overcommit or misplaced my troops.

    In Xcom2 though, random **** just happens and I suddenly find myself in horrible situations, nothing to do with my troop placement. How do I know this? Cos I RELOAD the game each time **** hits the fan and each time I either try a new tactic or stick to the same path, weird random **** happens. I flanked an enemy soldier with 80% chance to hit, close distance with no cover and I frigging MISSED! WTF. Oh and the ALIENS. They're mind controlling everyone all the time and at random. My troops panicking at the worst times, which makes it super infuriating after carefully positioning them.

    Xcom1's difficulty progressed smoothly. I could feel the game's difficulty spike as I progressed through the game. But at the same time, I was also improving as a player and my squad was leveling up as well so the challenge felt manageable. The crazy high difficulty in the early game in Xcom2 coupled with just random **** happening just made this game unplayable for me.

    And the super long loading times didn't help. And base management felt convoluted this time. I remember enjoying managing my base and resources in Xcom1, and it felt more intuitive. Xcom2 however was more confusing and felt all over the place. Maybe they wanted to make it more story driven and cinematic as can be seen with the numerous cutscenes. I didn't really care for it cos the main gameplay was just so frustrating.

    And coming from Xcom1 when I believe Earth won, how the hell did the Aliens take over the world?! Doesn't make sense.

    TLDR: FAILED OPPORTUNITY. FRUSTRATING GAME    … Expand
  29. V1L3
    Jun 9, 2018
    3
    Do not play this game unless you are prepared to either be rewarded for being lucky, or severely punished for being unlucky. Although a piece of this game requires skill, the massive amounts of luck are unavoidable, making the game unplayable at times. If you manage to get lucky and don’t miss 90% shots, you may enjoy yourself while playing this game, can’t stand being punished for beingDo not play this game unless you are prepared to either be rewarded for being lucky, or severely punished for being unlucky. Although a piece of this game requires skill, the massive amounts of luck are unavoidable, making the game unplayable at times. If you manage to get lucky and don’t miss 90% shots, you may enjoy yourself while playing this game, can’t stand being punished for being unlucky? Avoid this game… Expand
  30. Lonitx
    Dec 2, 2019
    0
    the game wipe timer is a joke, makes the game no fun to play, maybe add a hard mode where it's active.
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Awards & Rankings

13
#13 Best PS4 Game of 2016
32
#32 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2016
34
#34 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
87

Generally favorable reviews - based on 29 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 29
  3. Negative: 0 out of 29
  1. RPGamer
    Jan 3, 2018
    80
    XCOM 2 doesn't reinvent the wheel, which is a good thing. It takes the lion's share of the gameplay from the last game and embeds it into the new game's foundation, shifting around some pieces to support the new gameplay fixtures without really altering the heart of the experience. With new soldier classes, enemy types, mission objectives, an all-new base, and a story built on losing the invasion the last time around, the new game provides the same intense combat experience and resource management series veterans expect. It ups the ante in terms of difficulty, and the result is a nail-biting game of close calls and narrow victories. While this may turn off some, it provides an amazing feeling of victory when one finds the sweet spot between keeping troops alive and advancing the long-term narrative-driving projects.
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  2. Playstation Official Magazine Australia
    Nov 27, 2016
    90
    While it’s a shade short of perfect, there is no comparison: you will find no finer strategy game on PS4. [Christmas 2016, p64]
  3. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Nov 21, 2016
    90
    No mere sequel, XCOM 2 reshapes everything with lots of success. It won't coddle you, and the invisible dice hate you, but overcoming these odds is as sweet as ever. [Dec 2016, p.72]
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