XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

XCOM is awesome. Much like Dark Souls, it can be punishingly difficult, and I love it for the challenge, although it can be played on a lower difficulty while you're learning the ropes.

The only thing holding it back from a perfect score for me is the steep learning curve. Figuring out what to build and research with your constantly limited resources is a critical part of the game and one of the toughest to master.

The between missions meta-game where you build new facilities, research new technologies, recruit, train and equip your soldiers, is an integral and fascinating part of the game. It's a shame, then, that it's not very well explained and you're left to sink a few times until you learn to swim.

You'll be cruising along and then figure out six missions in that you're woefully short on satellites or something, but they are so expensive and take so long to build that often by the time you realize you're missing something like this it's too late to do anything about it. Your game was sunk by a decision you overlooked ten missions earlier and you just now figured it out.

That said, the metagame is fun once you get the hang of it, and the turn by turn strategy battles never grow old. This is one to hang onto and play for a long time to come. A one of a kind strategy game for consoles and a highlight of this generation of games.

I really wanted to like this game, but finally gave up after watching the aliens repeatedly kill my soldiers with a single shot over and over. How I could have 5 guys shoot at and miss an alien standing out in the open, then the alien return fire and kill a soldier standing behind a giant rock is beyond me.