Flashy, shallow husk of one of the best tactical game.
No tactical depth.
No ballistic calc - hit chance combat mechanic, wich leads to silly situations like miss at point blank distance.
Linear small maps.
Weak macro- and micromanagement.
Limited down to nothing economical and production gameplay.
That game have some flaws, but there aren't that many, as stated in already posted reviews. Yes, there are many artificial limitations, but most of them can be removed by certain upgrades or skills. Shoot through obstacle is possible, but it also remove obstacle for good, and so on. Still, some issues or "features" remain annyoing for the rest of game, like you get 3 places where aliens strike at once, but you have only one team to send or point-blank shoots from assault weapons that misses. Also, "2 moves + attack" turn is worse than original APs system. From the bright sides, locations are pretty climatic, battle are sometimes fierce (environment is highly destructable), and later game become challanging, so X-com series veteran may not be bored at all. Overall, if someone buy/bought it during sale, then shouldn't regret, as game is solid one and still enjoyable, despite some questionable design decission.
Being a huge fan of the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, having finished it a couple of times (still worth playing today, btw - especially thanks to the Open XCom open source version which runs flawlessly on modern systems and allows you to enhance the experience with countless community made mods!), I was really excited to find out there's a modern remake, building upon the game mechanics of the original, trying to balance the changes just right so that it improves the experience while still staying faithful to its predecessor. And upon finishing the game (Enemy Uknown, I haven't played the expansion yet), I'm happy to say that's exactly what the new XCOM does! True, there is a couple annoyances for UFO veterans (not being able to target mind controlled aliens or the - still desctructible - environment directly comes to mind first) but apart from that, it's all there - the atmosphere, the looming threat, the fear during the tactical missions, where you need to plan each step carefully - even though I have to admit it's not nearly as hard as the original UFO (no psi attacks without line-of-sight, aliens never attack you first until you come close enough - meaning no more being killed by a plasma burst out of the dark, without even knowing what killed you) - but it's probably for the best, as the original tended to be truly merciless and frustrating sometimes for these very reasons. Also, the base construction, research, engineering - all there and mostly improved (if rather simplified sometimes). And I really enjoyed the third person action camera during missions - it really adds to the immersion (even though sometimes it doesn't work as intended and you end up seeing a nearby wall instead of the action behind it - fortunatelly these occasions are quite rare and thus tolerable). The final mission felt little underwhelming and surprisingly easy though... Still, this is a great tactical game and a dignified tribute to the original, with a lot of replay value! Just get it.
This was my first delve into the series and I played it to completion years ago. But revisiting after my first long experience with UFO Defense has revealed EU to be a needlessly frustrating and restrictive game in hindsight. In spite of good music and mood, not even the Long War mod can save it from being dumbed-down and saddled with egregious design decisions.
In UFO, you can build multiple bases on which to research multiple projects; multiple skyrangers to respond to any and all threats; up to 14 soldiers on a single mission; any weapon or piece of equipment for anyone, regardless of stats; cooking 'nades and passing them between teammates to toss at faraway enemies; picking up equipment from corpses during battle and using them... the list goes on way too long for a review. In short, complete and utter control over every single aspect of the game.
In EU, you're severely limited for mass appeal. You get only one base; only one research project at any time; only one skyranger to respond to multiple terror missions at once; only six soldiers per mission; item/class restrictions; no live battle pickups; restriction to two actions per soldier; reloading takes up an entire turn; a MUCH slower pace during battle phases.... And so on.
The worst and most frustrating part of EU is what happens when enemies are revealed. In UFO, your soldier has time units, allowing for way more than only two actions to be taken in a single turn. This means if you're trying to flank and unwittingly expose another alien, they ARE exposed; more often than not, you'll have time units remaining to react! In EU, the second you've exposed any group when you're trying to set up a flank, they automatically get into cover and set themselves up against you WITHOUT taking their turn, even when your own phase remains and (more often than not) have used up your precious TWO actions, leaving your soldiers exposed and vulnerable! It's bad game design.
This is why I can't get into EU anymore.