XCOM: Enemy Unknown Complete Pack

Absolutely great reboot of the X-com series that 'dumbed' it down to just about a perfect balance of keeping the best elements of the original, jettisoning the flotsam, and updating everything to modern capabilities.

I am a pretty hard core turnbased tactical player, I grew up playing JA2 1.13 and also played the original xcoms. So at first I found this game a little simplistic. But I agree with a lot of other reviewers that the game really sucks you in. Good story! (spoiler) When the aliens suddenly hit back in your base is really one of those moments. The tactical combat is really quite hard and you do need to make tough calls to make it through. Great game and as soon as I finish it I will start on the ''Long war'' expansion/mod which I am already looking forward to. Would get 5/5 if it had multiplayer. Now I can't show my friends how much I would kick their ass at this. My ego will have to make do with killing the AI. So 4/5.

Amazing game, new skills and features on every round - also news enemies and challenges on every round - the learning curve never ends until you finish the game. Beautiful graphics, fun and clever gameplay, solid story, great scenery, awesome soundtrack. Huge replay value, I finished it at least 10 times. Just can't find anything bad about this game. Buy it. Be happy!

While not as free form as the original dosbox X-com of old , with Enemy Within it brings some of the brutal aspects of old Xcoms back , including base defense , terror missions and being able to break enemy's cover.. The game is very well designed around tactics and strategy : taking some ideas from the old X-coms and introducing some new interesting ones, as well as some side story missions. its kind of like X-com+ Fire Emblem. The Expansions also do a good job at expanding the original story so it gives an inspiring direction to the franchise.

Sadly, X-COM: EU is a bit of bummer. Even without comparing it to the all-time great UFO Defense which preceded it. There is no atmosphere to speak of, everything in the game's environment is meant to look like some sort of bland sci-fi action bit. The supporting cast are tropes without any personality, and the aliens' designs might well be straight ripped from some after school cartoon adventure show. The music is entirely forgettable as well. The base building is pretty linear at first, though it does sort of branch in terms of where your precious few resources will be focused. This is a balancing act that I never felt I could totally exploit, although there are probably EU experts who can break the system. Promotions are pretty topical, there is some choice in upgrading but in short, having the soldier alive for more missions will simply make them more powerful regardless of which specific perks you choose, nor will the choices really alter how you play them. The equipment upgrading, for all its confusing interfacing and your ever-changing supply of engineers, is quite linear as well, with very few people who are going to opt for improving gear like medkits or scopes rather than going straight for the weapons. Missions are laughably identical. Generic military dispatch guy will start with a one liner that inserts whatever country of 3 you decided to intervene in, based on a choice of mission rewards and national panic limits. But the combat itself always involves the same approach; creep along until you stumble across enemies and then swing for the fences. There is no incentive to really dive in most cases; practically all missions do not involve a ratings risk for civilian casualties, nor give you any greater reward for completing it in 2 turns or cheesing the whoe thing over 50. In these encounters expect to fight hundreds of copies of 3 of the same enemy types, while a few others get mixed in for some bland flavoring later on. All in all, pretty lame.