It's far, far too similar to the original. Which itself was still far too similar to X-Com: Enemy Unknown. So this is, really, just yet another rehash of the original X-Com. Except there are also a lot of bugs. Overall a big disappointment.

yea this game is nice
pro gamer tips for any difficulty:

2 lab tiles should be enough to keep up with tech, but if you're on Commander difficulty you might have to forego the autopsy research unless you shell out for 3 if you want to do autopsies - if you stick to 2 just don't do the autopsies until the very end of the game when you run out of tech to research

get some extra workshops, 6 or maybe 4 to provide the passive income and also an industrial base to roll out the airplanes nice and quick, you're gonna want at least two airplanes covering each continent

in the early game, even unupgraded shields can still eat 1-2 plasma shots so they still have a point, a lot of other people in steam discussions seem to jape on about how shields are useless and pistols are useless, idk have you considered just also bringing a shotgun or something in the helicopter for them to go back and pick up when the shield breaks?

Even on commander you still have the capability to not get "overrun", per se - there are three distinct "power spikes" to plan for
1: Aliens bring out the plasma guns and robots - this power spike is pretty soft and you can deburr it with technology, generally requiring the Heavy variant of Guardian armor to reliably tank plasma (by reliably tank, I mean it will almost never one-shot, you'll just have to be good at the game to deal with the terminator Sebillian Elites that run 20 tiles and machine gun 5 plasma shots in a turn), but I said before that shields can suffice if you haven't got that yet
2: Aliens have fusion weapons - a much sharper power spike and it's where things get dicey with 187 damage per shot, zoo wee mama no suit of armor is gonna stop those numbers, the only way to make sure your guys can really survive getting hit is for you to focus on getting soldiers with high starting Health so they can be trained up to Lieutenant or whatever and have 80+ Health for the armor to actually save them, only recruit the responsible ones who take their vitamins in the morning (or just build four surgery tiles lmao)
3: Aliens increase in number on terror missions and bases by 50%, which is like 32-39 aliens on Commander, and since they have 130% accuracy bonus on Commander they pretty much never miss :skull:, the only thing I can recommend at that point is that you should be good at the tactical game by this point

the Warden armor is kind of a waste of time (because you're just gonna be getting Guardian armor, just naked greek until you actually get armor for the power spikes?) and so is Accelerated weapons (I only get like 3 accelerated shotguns and the cleaner rifles maybe), the classic MAG weapons (Gauss) rock and the laser recharger is awesome for getting all the machine gunners in a line in the corner and destroying all the cover on the map with ctrl+click freefire (like Napoleon said, if your gun barrel isn't smoking by the time you run out of ammo you're doing it wrong), but the pale urine colored imitations are barely better than regular ballistics if you're making snipers and other expensive weapons

It's a very good game. A great remake of Xcom. Nice to play original Xcom style game with updated graphics is neat. I have only played it about 40 some hours. But played the hell out of the original Xcom. It feels like a good and faithful remake so far. With some extra mechanics on the global map to make it it's own game still. The one thing I would like to see is this. I would love a campaign style mission editor. Just for kicks to have stories told as well in that manner. I know that is NOT the purpose of the game. But I feel like it would not be hard to put in and it would add another level to the game. But at the end of the day it feels like a faithful remake of Xcom thus far. I would recommend it.