Summary verdict: It's not bad. It's not great. If you liked XCOM and want more, sure, why not. It doesn't have those stupid XCOM 'pod' spawn mechanic, so overwatch is actually useful here to camp around with. The downside is that less than... what, five hours? in, I'm finding the random maps repetitive. And, worst of all: I just shut it down to wrap up the night finishing a The X-Com Files map I stopped in the middle of.
Just did fourfive missions, skipping the tutorial as per one of the previous recommendations... yeah, the tutorial's pretty unnecessary if you're used to games of this genre; just lookup what free aiming is and figure out the rest.
Units don't really step out of cover at all, unless you tell them to... A lot of the objects are destructable too, though it won't auto-target through it... even in cases where you'd think it would, like non-bulletproof glass. Having said that, I didn't really have that problem. I could aim a shot when hiding behind a barn wall, next to the open door, like I was standing in the middle of the opening.
The tutorial not explicitly saying you should bring extra ammo I can give a pass-- on neither of my missions did I even use up more than half of anybody's ammo. To be fair, I also basically didn't use the Heavy, who only gets six shots... he's just so awkward to use, with almost no movement points and awful accuracy. His one redeeming factor is that he starts with jumpjets which gives him massive mobility, but he can't attack the same turn, so I've mostly been using him as a forward scout. Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, but if you're running out of ammo in the first few missions and you haven't figured out "It might be good to bring extra."... (On the other hand, I just came out of a fun X-Com Files mission where I accidentally equipped myself with the wrong ammo, so I had to fight my way through a factory with two crowbars, so PEBCAK's alive and well.)
The food icon feels a lot too much like the Apple logo, particularly on the white and glass food crates.
There are some weird targeting issues-- like I had one target clipping through a wall and it should have been a 100% hit, given the size. Instead, it hit the wall (and destroyed it).
I THINK the destructable terrain can deal damage-- I got a grenade thrown at a crate on the other side of a wall, and when the wall blew, I shouldn't've taken grenade damage, but my hp bar showed up when the chunk of wall went flying my way.
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One thing that's kind of nifty is that your units get a share of the mission xp based on their contribution, but you also get 1sp for every 100xp that you can apply towards anybody or bank (presumably in the case of a future new recruit). Helps out if somebody consistently has poor contribution but you want to keep them around, or something.
Okay, it kind of bugs me how somebody can take 3 burstshot milspec assault rifle salvos to an unarmored part of the face and not die.
Appears to be no easy way to compare equipment?
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Researching combat gear and getting new equipment doesn't quite feel as exciting. Raise a few numbers, move on.
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Okay, that's kind of funny. You can hit targets with a melee weapon... or you can attack with a melee weapon. Which is hitting them, but, yanno. In actual gameplay terms, it doesn't seem to be a bad deal-- monstrous damage, no miss, and usually other nice side effects. The downside: Unlike an assault rifle, which can easily deal death from 10 tiles away... twice a round, if you don't move, or a sniper rifle, which can do it from like 15 tiles... you have to be in their face.
Pistols are really good weapons for snipers-- a sniper shot takes 3AP, and a pistol takes 1AP. Any kind of extended movement and they can't attack unless they've got a backup. And with the accuracy bonuses they're probably packing, a pistol at long range can do plenty in their hands.
Didn't think too much on this, but cover, by virtue of how to-hit works now, is actually... cover. Ducking behind a waist-high metal desk is going to be a lot more effective than a 3/4ths high wooden wall: The wall is going to fall apart at the first few shots, but that desk might actually survive a salvo or two. Assuming they don't just shoot you in the head.
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Grenades look pretty weak, but they actually deal damage in a weird way that I'm not sure how it works out yet-- despite doing nominally 50 damage, the one I just used did something like 200 damage to various body parts, disabling three of them (causing an extra 30 bleed a turn, plus extra effects). They're a keeper, just not for straight damage.
At least on the default difficulty, you can restart any map you're on in case you screw up. Like sending 6 of 8 of your squad to the roof where, just out of LoS, three grenadier mobs were hanging out. Oops.
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Will be continuing to update as impressions change.