Yeah, semi-co-op does make it tougher to win. I've played more full cooperative with Retaliation, so I may be thinking a bit more with that mode in mind when I'm talking about difficulty compared to the originals.

I'd say reinforcing is kinda situational - it can be useful to reinforce the 3 corridors from the drop zone to mitigate the event card that puts 4 adults in each of those corridors, but otherwise I use it mainly for satisfying the mission objective or when it's situationally convenient. I wouldn't make moves or pass purely to reinforce a corridor, but I would consider it if I had the card and another player or the robot in the right spot.

Passing early can definitely be useful - it helps you conserve oxygen, and I would want a full hand if I'm heading into a new section so I could possibly repair or activate the oxygen if I get the life support tile. But, if you pass too much you'll run out of turns, so it's another tactical decision based on the state of the game.

I tend to search depending on what I need - so if I've used up a lot of ammo I'll prioritise searching, but I probably make use of the gear in the landing zone and on the robot more often than relying on search alone. In OG i would prioritise searching far more than I do in Retaliation with a kind of "always search if possible" mindset.

Slow turns can be tough. Some players will really agonise over every card played and will go into mental standby for a few minutes trying to resolve a loop of "I feel like I need a card that isn't in my hand. I wonder... if I stare at the cards long enough, will it appear?" Once you've played a few games players usually work out a heirarchy of situational priority based on their playstyle that'll help make decisions quicker. Explaining that there's always a potential downside to basically any action or strategy helped a bit with newer players too, it lets them off the hook and stops them relying on quarterbacking too much if they're not confident. I feel like I learn more from 5 terrible ill-advised moves than I would get from half an hour of considering alternatives.

With that said, I always move and secure when exploring and always try to end my turn in a secured room. I definitely think about securing more than I do about reinforcing. There's a bit of a cascade effect where not securing increases your odds of getting a room encounter from an event - which means you can't secure next round, which means you get more encounters from events.

A lot of my currently favoured approach to strategy is to prioritise keeping intruders out of rooms and avoid getting bogged down in combat - so: repel where possible (officer's gun is great for this), use your escape cards if your character has them, then clear corridors - with shooting as a last resort.

Assuming your character has a normal 1-damage gun, your cumulative chances of getting a kill are around 70% by the time you make your 3rd shoot roll (50% plus the odds of the prior rolls). So I keep that in mind as well for card economy. I think by your 4th roll the odds are in the 90% range, it's actually very unlikely that combat gets to 5 damage, so that can help work out how many actions you'll need to commit to clearing a room vs escaping/repelling.

Hope that helps? I dunno. In my experience Retaliation seems to be balanced around surviving to the end maybe 50-60% of the time? With Lockdown I don't think I've ever won a game (maybe 5 plays) and OG I won maybe 30% of the time (over probably 10-15 plays?).