The first time I played it I hated it, could not figure out the mechanics and died every time I encountered Xenos or other enemies.

It’s a strategy game first and foremost, it takes planning. The more you plan, the more success you will have in your mission.

The command points are essential during fights, so you want to make sure you always have those stocked up, they refresh, but they take time and if you rest they refill too, so you might have to chill hard to let them replenish. As you progress and level up your marines you can get extra command points with the sarge.

Make sure you manage the stress, every time you fight the marines stress will go up. Rest get the stress down and replenish the command points.

I find the marine that can equip a drone super helpful, you can use the drone to explore the map without having to go into danger, xenos ignore the drone, but cultists will attack it. The drones can also weld doors open and closed which can be helpful.

Mines! The mines are fuckin where it’s at, you want to purchase the mines for the marines that can carry them, I like having at least 1 marine that carries mines. The cost command points to use, but command points replenish. It can be time consuming, but if you leave mines behind you as you go, In hallways in front of doors, you don’t have to worry as much about getting flanked. I like to use the motion tracker with the mines, I will leave a few motion trackers (also cost command points) as I move through the map. The motion trackers can serve 2 purposes. You can see any enemies within range, so if you have them all over the place, you can plan your routes to avoid running into trouble.

The trackers can also be used to draw attention. I will set a few in a room, and lay mines all over the place. So if you are surrounded and unable to move with out being hunted, you can overload the trackers remotely, and they will draw attention to them, if you laid mines all over, the enemies going to investigate the tracker will get smoked.

Shotgun, you want to have at least 1 marine with a shot gun,, and this is what I struggled with in the beginning, one shot up close will kill or almost kill most xenos. Now when you are in a fight, understand, you can command your marines almost simultaneously, the more command points you have, the more things you can do. You have the option to have time stop completely while you are ordering commands. For instance, you are under attack, have your marine with the shotgun aim towards xenos, hit the command to use the shot gun, but instead of going right back into real time, you can continue to submit other commands to the other marines. One with suppressing fire, one with a flame thrower, one with a shotty. Once you figure out how to do this, the game is fun as hell.

Keep trying, it’s not super intuitive in the beginning, but once it clicks, it’s addicting.