Title might be a tad unfair, especially since I am giving it a pretty high score (Although I would like to give it a 3,75 if only I could), but I suppose it is simply impossible to have tactical missions that so closely mirror the style of X-COM without their depth and come out perfectly fine. What I like about Hard West is its world-building. A Wild West full of gunslinging heroes and villains (mostly villains) dabbling in demonic powers, the devil walking the earth to charm fools into doing his bidding and a few good souls trying their best to stem the tide. Excellent soundtrack and narration really pull you in much in the way they do in Darkest Dungeon and that alone was enough for me to look past the mediocre and too few inbetween tactical missions (which are usually pretty easy but do at least tie into the story). The gameplay itself is divided between a scenario map where there are different changes in objectives, not so much mechanics, each time. You travel around from location to location, make a few choices to get what you need and it's all very nicely fluffed out for what it is. A smooth-talking personification of our moral end helps give critical moments in the story quite a bit of extra oompf, so that's appreciated. So presentation and style were top notch, but as for the actual story within this really cool setting they cooked up... well, it's presented in several shortish scenarios where you change characters each time and while it's not awful, it doesn't exactly tread unknown territories, if not to say outright it feels pretty flat at times. There's also no divergent paths and thus little replay value. One might think I am perhaps too generous with those four stars but I did get it during a sale and enjoyed my time with it more than I thought I would so I suggest you try and wait for one as well.
