I'm sorry, but I have to unburden myself because this boils my brains.
It's no secret that XCOM2 is my favorite game from recent times, so imagine my surprise when they announced a new XCOM game, and it's coming in one week?
I should be happy, right? WRONG. Because I don't know what this is, but it is definitely not the XCOM I spent over 1,000 hours playing. It might look like the same game superficially, if you ignore the cell shaded graphics (more on that later). But look closer, what's missing? If your answer is customization congratulations, you won! But I'd have accepted base building, promotions, and equipment upgrades as well as correct answers.
So yes, chimera squad, henceforth referred to only as diversity squad, has all these core elements missing. Core elements that all contributed greatly to making XCOM2 great. So if they take all that away, they must be adding something?
So far only a single new mechanic was revealed called "Breach mode", which seems only to take away even more. As in this mode instead of having to earn advantageous positions for your squad, you can freely choose the start position of each squad member individually. That eliminites one of the more tense part of missions, leading up to the first encounter. The part I got much enjoyment out of, so breach mode is a bust.
What else are they adding? It seems forced diversity. Look, I have nothing against aliens, but I like to choose my own squad. And not some pre-defined characters with the most annoying personalities and voiceovers possible. Taking away player choice is never a good idea, taking away options previously available in a franchise is a big no-no. Sequel design 101 right there.
And finally, the cell shaded graphics, WHY? God no, please tell me it's optional, and not the direction they are going with XCOM3. I hate cell shaded graphics, and I'll tell you exactly why. It is the waving of a white flag on part of the graphics department. To me it says: "Hey, we gave up, we are not even going to try and make this game look good, or even remotely realistic" It's a cop out. Some might like it, but some people like modern art too.
Buh, buh, buh, but it's only 10 bucks! You can't complain cause it's cheap!
The hell I can't. What does pricing have to do with whether the game is fun? This is the same tired non-argument people use to defend the epic store. But they're giving away free games! If any of those games were interesting to me in the first place I'd have purchased them full price when they were released. I'm not going to play a game because it's free. I'm going to play games because they seem fun and interesting. Being cheap doesn't turn a bad game into a good game. It might be an easier pill to swallow if I've been duped into buying a cheap bad game than an expensive bad game, but it's still a bad game I have absolutely no desire to play.
Now I'm not going to condemn this entirely pre-release. They might be just doing a terrible job at marketing it and it's actually not what it seems at all. But I'm definitely holding off on purchasing until full reviews and gameplay is available to better judge it.