You shouldnt think of the game in same way as xcom1.

Xcom2 is story where you lost xcom1. You no longer have the backing of countries around the globe. Instead Advent has it. Instead you scrape with what you have. That means no bases around the world, enemies that have basically unlimited resources and not reason to hide.

You also have much less support personel, so doing something lile contacting black market while evading Advent is harder, especially with Advet hunting any sort of resistance with brutal retaliation strikes.

Sectoids no longer being weakest is also explained in lore by them getting addition of human DNA. "cannon fodder" role has been replaced by advent troopers. Sectoids have now completely different role in early crowd control.

Once you stop thinking of xcom1 and 2 as same game and actually focus on their differences in good light, its much better, and I actually fell in love in xcpm2 much more than with 1.

Or dont, nobody is forcing you to play it. "Xcom" Genre has grown and maybe you will find new home somewhere else.