The first time I saw this game was when I bought the UFO trilogy in a store, I hoped it was the sequel to one of my favorite game series, X-COM. seing that it wasn't I nearly threw the game away and only came back to try it again several months later, and lets just say I was really lucky that I didn't throw it away.
The game has an interesting story development and a mostly good combat system, it also features diplomacy, which sadly isn't that well developed, there are 3 option in diplomacy, ask for soldiers, give resources and ask for resources, this makes the diplomacy unnecisarrily simplistic, even worse its not at all a realistic exchange, for example you can have maxed out approval of certain faction, ask for resources and it resets, there is NO option for any advanced trading and you cannot trade lands/equipment/technology.
also the difficulty has some VERY steep curves, at first you will be fighting retarded reticulans(and I don't mean that as an insult, its actually a plot point that they become mentally impaired) and mutants, then before you know it you will be fighting cultists who are MUCH better equiped than you and will overwhelm you with their numbers. after you manage to win some fights with them, get some of their advanced weapons(machine guns and what not) you'd think you can kick their ass right? WRONG! by the time you get enough proper equipment and well trained soldiers to start exterminating the cultists another alien race appears on earth and heres a surprise, they are again MUCH better equiped than you! and they side with the cultists.
I know I wrote more about the cons than the pros about this game but other than these problems the game has some really immersive story line and due to the difficulty it actually becomes really suspencefull.
charecter models become more fleshed out making a stronger attachment to your team members, and at the end of the day there is nothing more satisfying than to crush thouse same cultists that used to easily overpower and outnumber you, even if the game eventually gets back at you.
