The XCOM games by firaxis both contain some extremely cohesive art and action which help take a genre with a lot of downtime and still make it exciting. Ontop of this, the systems in XCOM 2 WOTC are great. Not insanely deep but broad causing nuance to every start and midgame.
One of the few Warhammer games that feels like you are forced into cruel and grey decisions as a matter of course. The mechancs are complex but the combat can be played fairly simply as well.
Grew up playing Jagged Alliance 2 and spent my college years depressed about the majority of people abusing the license. This is the closest thing to JA2 with the team and overworld management from the original game as well as the destructive environments and environmental mobility of those games as well. It's not perfect but its so damn close.
Really great open mechanics and lots of fun. It does have a pretty steep learning curve and it would be nice if maybe there were more training type quests upfront.
Even while playing the campaign I (and judging from Reddit others) got stuck without clear indication of how to accomplish a goal. The mechanics themselves are extremely interesting and feel well balanced but learning them has been a test in patience. More on the positives I found the balance of building combat and expansion to be best in class. 4x games frustrate me with pace in one direction and a lot of RTS games become frustrating in the other direction. This splits the difference extremely well allowing space for creativity, thought and reaction without feeling like I am trapped in a 10 turn cycle of accomplishing it that can happen in 4X games.
I spent my youth playing old isometric games that had levels of interaction that allowed me to control how the story plays out and they (mostly) only stood up due to my age and lack of creativity as a child. Event with the higher expectations of adulthood, playing this game brings that feeling back and holds it for longer than those games of my childhood.
