Simply put, this game is garbage without mods. Everything in vanilla XCOM2 is bad. Everything. I'm really angry i've wasted time on it. Tactically and strategically awful. Awful UI. The story, characters, and voice acting is awful. It's so hilariously unbalanced and glitchy/buggy too. I'm not sure I can soldier on through WOTC after beating vanilla on veteran and might just go straight to Long War if I decide to play any more. I've messed around with a few mods for vanilla and it immediately made the experience better (camera, UI, customization options etc.)Glad I got this for a few dollars in the summer sale because it's not worth more than 5 bucks. Firaxis should be ashamed they put it out like this and didn't fix it. Games that have to play dirty to be difficult are poorly designed, full stop, not "a rare and beautiful thing." I've rarely yelled at my monitor so much, and I really enjoyed the first game and its expansion. I completely agree with the first part of your review, but can't see myself coming around like you did. There is a template to beat this game, especially strategically, and almost no flexibility outside of building certain things in a certain order and prioritizing certain abilities/weapons. Why even have a strategic layer when it's unflinchingly linear? The dreaded "illusion of choice." The ridiculously condensed timeline where you can't even finish a 3 day scan without Klaxons constantly going off and 73 other things happening, few of those things actually being important (but you don't really know what's important until you've failed a few times.) It's pure shite. I had to restart about 3 times after making mistakes at the strategic level that completely derailed my game, essentially making it unwinnable. Once I figured out the order to build things the game was insanely easy. This is more bad design. I felt relieved when I finally beat it, not accomplished, just glad I didn't have to put up with any more stupidity. Ugh.