[REVIEW][TIPS] XCOM: Enemy Unknown review and tips

Quick post on the pros and cons of the new game vs. the old ones (comparison between the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown and the old XCOM: EU, Terror From The Deep, Apocalypse), and a bunch of miscellaneous tips...

Pros

• Much more streamlined than the original
• Cover system is a revolutionary change and an excellent game mechanic
• Map sizes are cut down dramatically so you don't spend 90% of your time slowly inching forward before finally seeing combat
• You no longer need to run around trying to find the last alien.  They introduced a "sound" mechanic that when you haven't been in combat for a few turns, it gives you a directional and audio cue as to where the nearest alien is.  It's not precise, but it's enough to get you headed in the right direction.
• Classes are extremely diverse and abilities are almost universally interesting and useful
• You're constantly strapped for money/time/resources- there's no way to get everything in the game, and you constantly need to make decisions that matter
• There are so many upgrades and things to build- there's no way you could build it all in a single game without intentionally grinding it out for a long time.
• Game is kind of short- a playthrough is about 20 hours according to them (I'm on track to beat it in a little over 15).  It does get a bit repetitive towards the end, so maybe that's a good thing.  Also, it's better to have 20 hours of good content than 20 hours of good content and 20 hours of filler time.
• Research "color" descriptions (origin of the aliens, descriptions of technology, etc.) are great!
• The voice acting is surprisingly decent.
• Sound effects good, music is decent but it's on a very short loop.
• You don't get shot out of the darkness anymore.  Depending on how you feel, that's either an improvement or a missed feature.
• The new action point system is an enormous improvement on the old Time Units.  Much more dramatic (forces you to really think about what you want, and high level characters don't have a million TUs either) and creates a more streamlined experience moving around, too.
• The "free move" mechanic for the aliens works surprisingly well.
• Alien AI is pretty good, better than the originals for sure.  Three complaints:  it doesn't work hard enough to flank you when you're obviously pinned, it NEVER throws a grenade at a single soldier even if its alternative is a very low percentage shot, and it does Overwatch at some pretty bizarre times.
• Grenades do a consistently medium amount of damage now, and pretty much can't one shot your guys.  Same thing for yours against the enemy.  They're mostly used as finishers or to blow away cover, which is EXTREMELY useful.
• The first 5 hours of the game is you being constantly impressed at the little details they put into the animations.  Breaking a window with the butt of a rifle before shooting, bracing a sniper rifle on their arm, dodging away from fire...
• There is a serious "one... more... fight" addiction
• No crashes and only one very minor bug that I've noticed so far (soldier got shot by a Sectopod beam and got blasted off the map while critically injured, unable to revive)
• Lots of items that you want to equip your soldiers with, and not enough slots (real decision making = good)
• They changed the mind control mechanic to being a line of sight ability instead of the original "I'm weakening your guys from across the map".  Overall, I think I like this (it feels more fair, at least) but it definitely weakens the tension and fear that the old mechanic generated.
• The game is, overall, less arbitrary and random.  Every time you lose a soldier you usually deserved it.  The originals could be absurd with their enemy placement and their rolls (I've lost an entire 14 man squad before leaving more than a space away from my shuttle by being hit by 2 opportunity fire rockets when opening the door)

Cons

• Equipping soldiers is a pain in the ass.  If you're rotating people in and out of your squad so that everyone gets promoted (to soften the blow of a single death) you need to manually unequip your best gear from people.  The UI is a bit slow to do this, too.  It'd be fine if you had plenty of Plasma Rifles to go around, but until the end of the game you have a hodgepodge of increasingly better weapons and it's so time-consuming to keep shifting gear from person to person.  Thankfully being injured or going to the Psi Labs removes their gear.
• The "squad overview" screen should show ALL their gear, not just the class, rank and backpack item.  It makes it a lot easier to move armor/etc. around.  Looking at the image is just annoying.
• Aliens only seem to come in multiples of five.  This is silly.
• Maps are extremely linear.  Sometimes it's literally just a straight line (like on a bridge), but even more square-ish maps usually have one clear direction to proceed.  Since aliens don't move around on their own (except for civilian terrorizing scenarios) you never have to worry about being flanked or shot from behind.
• Sometimes angles for cover are not intuitive- a slight change in angle can suddenly make partial cover useless.
• Clipping through walls happens a lot during the animations.
• Weapons fire occasionally goes through walls.
• Scientists aren't as important as they should be- engineers rule the day by a long shot.
• You should have a way of skipping the tutorial.
• The animation of being hit by gunfire is awful.
• The dark atmosphere of the originals isn't quite in this one.  At the beginning they do a good job of building the tension, but as the game progresses it feels just like an action game.
• In general, morale for both you and the enemy has been reduced in importance.  Every once in a while it might be an issue, but unless you're bringing green troops to late game missions you'll rarely see panics.  Also, the enemy almost never panics unless you use special abilities to do so.
• My single biggest issue with the game: the "enemy spotted" mechanic discourages flanking, in a game that's supposed to be ALL about flanking.  The reason being that when you try to flank, if you walk into unexplored terrain (which is the norm, since aliens don't wander into explored areas) you have a pretty high chance of accidentally triggering another group of aliens who would otherwise have left you alone until you finished the first pack.  Over half my deaths were because of this, until later in the game I wised up and just did "shootouts" where I blew away their cover instead of trying to flank.  It also cripples the assault class, except when they're being used as a finisher or a mind control killer.

Overall, a fantastic game, and definitely worth the day 1 buy.  Very much an improvement of the originals in the vast majority of respects and they did a good job modernizing the game without destroying the overall feel.

Tips

• The first thing you should do when you arrive in a mission is to figure out which corner of the map you are in.  Unlike the originals, you are ALWAYS in a corner of the map, and thus only have one general direction to head.  However, it's not always obvious which corner you're in.  Look around in the fog of war and find the red barrier line that indicates that you can't go any further, or just wait till you can't scroll anymore.
• As a sniper, if you only have one action point left in a round and there are no enemies visible, switch to your pistol and go into Overwatch.  Swapping weapons is free, and often a single guy in overwatch will discourage the enemy from rushing and throwing grenades.
• Get used to using the hotkeys.  They save you a lot of time in the long run.  Probably the most important is "Y", which puts you into overwatch.  Also, "enter" or "backspace" end your turn when you don't really need to do anything (waiting for someone to catch up and you know no enemies are coming towards you).
• Capturing live aliens after the first does not give you additional benefits other than being able to get their equipment intact (it doesn't self-destruct if they are captured alive).  Only the first captured alien of each type gives you a research bonus.
• Cars explode one turn after they are lit on fire.  If the enemy lights your cover car on fire, you must IMMEDIATELY run on your next turn.
• The Arc Thrower does not count as a "gun" for "run and gun".  This means that you always have to be within one action point move away from an enemy in order to stun them, regardless of class.  Don't forget that Supports get a +3 movement ability which is really helpful for stunning in combination with their smoke grenades.
• Satellites take a long time to build- start them early.  However, you can't build satellites unless you have free uplink space.
• Adjacency bonuses work up, down, left, and right (not diagonally).  That means workshops on different floors can still give bonuses to each other.
• The Battle Scanner can be thrown surprisingly far- farther than your normal grenade and rocket throws.
• Poison will do one point of damage a turn until it kills you or you are healed by a medkit.  Thin Men can shoot it at you (it ignores cover as far as I can tell, 100% accuracy) and they also leave behind a temporary cloud of poison after they die.
• Alien melee abilities never miss (berserker, chryssalid) so don't bother using abilities that reduce their aim like smokes or suppression.
• You can stun enemies in the air (floaters) but you're still limited by the three square range.
• "Rapid Shot" on a berserker only moves it once, even if you hit both times.
• Berserkers hit by reaction fire do not charge towards the shooter
• Aliens never wake back up after you stun them, unlike the originals.
• You will constantly be strapped for cash.  I strongly suggest saving up for satellites early to boost your income.
• If you're having trouble coming up with the resources to build plasma weapons, remember that you can stun enemies to prevent their weapons from self-destructing.  A Squaddie Support with the sprint upgrade is an excellent choice to hold an arc thrower.
• Med kits aren't very useful early but they're life savers later on in the game.  Make sure to get the bonus health upgrade!
• Assaults with "Run and Gun" and "Rapid Shot" are the answer to all mind-controllers.
• You live and die based on your cover.  I can't emphasize enough how important it is.  It's not just the miss chance- it also reduces your chance of being critically hit.
• An unupgraded Arc Thrower has a 90/80/70/50% chance of stunning an enemy at 1/2/3/4 health respectively. Note that it has a range of three, so you can hit targets that are a few spaces away or above you.
• Armor health:  Body Armor +1, Nano-fiber Vest +2 (technically a backpack item), Skeleton Suit +3, Carapace Armor +4, Psi Armor +6 (and a +30 to offensive and defensive Will), Archangel Armor +8, Titan Armor +10
• Psi Armor is very versatile for both offense and defense.  Offensively, it can allow you to mind control just about anyone, while defensively it gives you the ability to send in a solo guy to stun an enemy mind-controller without being worried about being MCed yourself.
• Interrogating an Ethereal gives you credit towards "All Technology Research" which is actually a lot more useless than it sounds.  By the time you manage to meet them you often have researched everything in the game or are very close.  Basically, don't kill yourself trying to stun one.  This also applies to Foundry upgrades which you still might be getting (makes them finish 50% faster), but since most of them don't take too long to begin with it's not a huge benefit.
• You only need seven Muton corpses in the game.  One for the corpse research, and six for the foundry upgrade, "Ammo Conservation".  Everything else you can sell.
• Only five Heavy Floater corpses are needed.  One for the initial corpse research, and four for the "Advanced Repair" foundry upgrade.
• Only one Muton Elite corpse is required for the initial corpse research.  You can sell the rest freely.
• Three Sectopod Wrecks are required.  One for the initial corpse research, and two for the "Advanced Construction" foundry upgrade.
• For interceptor buffs: 2x cyberdisc wrecks -> boost, 3x floater -> dodge, 3x sectoid -> aim
• Sectopods, Chryssalids and Cyberdiscs cannot be stunned.  Drones can be hit with the arc thrower, but they will either die (no upgrade) or be converted to your side (with the foundry upgrade).