I'm not down on the mechanic, I'm just nervous about the way they're talking about it. It makes me skittish when people start throwing around 'realistic' like its a buzzword. I think, or at least I want to think, that this can be done really well- but I'm going to slap a caveat in there.
The part about snipers being able to grab headshots against enemies who think they're safe, that's again something that I could come down on either side of depending on how its implemented. If it lets the Sniper shoot through cover as a skill, I'm going to roll my eyes a bit. If it highlights an enemy's body so that cover offers no concealment and the high-powered sniper rifle is intrinsically able to shoot through cover, then I'm happy. If it means that snipers can call a shot every once in a while to fire on a point instead of the normal cone, I'm also fairly happy.
I want to be able to love this game, it's just the dev posts that activate all of my 'Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!' sensors.
On another note, I'm still ambivalent about the world map, but that's again largely due to the comparisons they make to other games, Stellaris being of note. However, if it's used more tonally- more in the 'It's dark, we've got a plane full of people, low supplies, half a tank of gas, no idea where Chicago is, and there aren't enough sunglasses to go around' vibe where the map is a threatening thing. In Stellaris, each individual point on the map usually feels me with pangs of regret and resignation, as I know I'm going to have marry, sleep with, or kill every one of those points in order to win the game. If I look at the 200 points on the geoscape and recoil with fear because I know 85% want to kill me personally, that's good. If I look at the 200 points on the geoscape and recoil because I know I'm going to have to tediously grind through these fucking pop-up events, that's bad.
We'll have to wait and see. In all honesty, I'd be happy if this game stayed pretty far away from the 'realistic' adjective.