I think "purists" will tell you this game is obviously easier than the first XCOM.

Personally, since I never played the XCOM games, I'll just say I found Hard West to be somewhat hard, but do bear in mind this is generally not my kind of game, I'm more of an adventure/action gamer, and I just bought Hard West because of the setting. So, if a "casual" action gamer like myself finds it to be hard, it probably doesn't mean much.

It isn't hard, positioning is the most important thing in this game since enemies die in 1 good shot or 2 at max.