Yeah, I agree. And the fact I didn't played any X-Com games maybe is the fact why I have nothing against the game, but I understand the point here.

At least with Metal Gear Rising they gave to the game a new "name", related to Metal Gear saga but not directly connected with MGS.

I specifically didn't mention Fallout because the rant I just made would have been trice as long, but thank you for bringing it up anyway!

Sometimes is better not to use a franchise. Just look how well Sleeping Dogs went after they've lost the ties with the True Crime franchise. United Front certainly had the possibility to get their franchise from Activision (as Activision sold everything deemed unprofitable), but they choose to do something different, while keeping the gameplay mechanics.

I have no attachment to the X-Com series, but I am an avid fan of 3rd person cover-based shooters and I found this game to be pretty mediocre, mostly due to just how underbaked everything feels, it really could have benefited from a few more months in development.

Especially to iron out the problem that basically made me stop playing, the terminally stupid squad A.I.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I'm very close to the end and I'm loving what they have done with the story. Well to be fair, XCom franchise already had two spin-offs so it's more of 'what people believe it stands for'.

Exactly, that's why I chose the past simple form as well.

It's simply a mediocre corridor cover shooter, with horrendous companion AI. And the graphics aren't up to the requirements.

I like the setting/story but what's on top of that setting is mediocre at best. If you take a classic franchise with a dedicated hardcore fanbase and change it into something else entirely, "it's not that bad" just won't cut it.

I agree, I picked it up in HB with no expectations. I played through the intro last night and enjoyed it, although I've never played a cover shooter before so all of the mechanics were totally unfamiliar to me. But it was enjoyable enough.

My review from last year (not too spoiler-heavy but avoid reading if you don't want to spoil anything):

"December 19th: The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. I didn't think it was quite as bad as people let out to be, but yeah, it's no secret that the game definitely has its fair share of problems. The combat was fun at times, but it was completely marred because of your bonehead teammates, whom you constantly had to babysit. These fellows have no quarrel with jumping head first out in the open in the middle of gunfire, if you don't tell them to stay the fuck down. And sometimes, even when you do, they will come looking for you if they get lonely, completely ignoring all cover or enemies. The locales looked nice and captured the 60's essence quite nicely, but then they would always change the environment midway through and make you fight in generic, metallic sci-fi corridors for the rest of the missions. The protagonist, Carter, was very unlikeable and cliched, and [removed for being too spoilerish]. And finally, they really dropped the ball regarding the storyline right off the bat. It's like no one even cares that much that the whole world is being invaded by aliens: to them it feels like a minor inconvenience. They introduced all these weird sci-fi plot elements which I really didn't care about at all: it all should have been much simpler. Aliens invade, holy shit, let's defend our planet. But no. It's ridiculous. The biggest laughing matter about the plot came right before the credits: [removed for being too spoilerish] This game isn't quite as bad as people let out to be, but it's still a pretty fucking shitty game. Every XCOM lover will feel betrayed, while the rest would've been better off just by playing Mass Effect, which The Bureau very blatantly copies in every turn. Really can't recommend the game. "

Still stand behind those words. It's a waste of time.

Eh, it could have been worse... *Looks at X-COM: Enforcer with glaring eyes.*

And I have a sudden urge to link this.

Spoiling the ending is considered not too spoiler heavy? Are you kidding me? I didn't get to that bit yet, and I happen to be enjoying the story quite a lot.

I took another look at the text and you're right: I suppose it did still include stuff that could be considered heavy spoilers: I'm truly sorry for that. I edited out the parts I think told a little bit too much, just in case anyone else, who hasn't played / finished the game but wishes to do so, happens to read it. Again, I apologize - I'm sorry you got spoilered especially since you said you had like the story so much thus far. I guess the fact that I loathed the game got the better of my judging ability regarding how much I should say about the game.

Well, I didn't see the spoilers, luckily :D

Thank you. And it's ok, I have already seen the proper twist I suppose.