This is a qualified, quite heavily qualified, recommendation. Not everybody would find this game worth their time and money because it has one unfortunate fundamental problem in an otherwise extremely well designed and (for an indie title) produced game:

The game is basically XCOM2 style combat meets Invisible Inc style stealth, but (in very simple terms) the combat is too difficult and the stealth is too easy to be entirely satisfying.

However it is also a ripsnorting good cold war spy thriller/mystery with a great story and atmosphere, a very interesting strategic layer that IMHO surpasses XCOM's strat layer by some margin, a mass of spy related mechanics and gismos to play with and just enough good, exiting, challenging missions to carry it. Plus there are certain ways you can play that will increase the “good mission” count somewhat.

So if you are into the cold war spy thing, the game is definitely worth a look, because apart from this difficulty problem, it is very good. I am so that is why I enjoyed it through to the end and make this qualified recommendation and I certainly recommend keeping a close eye on this studio in the future, they've got a real blockbuster in them IMO. But if you're looking for something like XCOM but better, it isn't, and if you're looking for something like Invisible Inc but better, it isn't.

So some detail on “the problem”.

The heart of the problem is that every mission map is both a stealth map and a combat map at the same time – you always start in stealth and if you get caught you go into combat. In the early game when you are new to the mechanics and make mistakes and your agents are still pretty useless this works brilliantly – you get a nail biting tense stealth section followed by a terrifying desperate escape attempt against seemingly insuperable odds. Would that it continued that way, but sadly it doesn't.

Once you learn the stealth mechanics it becomes, in most routine missions (and there are a LOTS of routine missions) it becomes far too easy to 100% complete the maps in pure stealth by rinsing a repeating exactly the same formula. If it's possible to do it in pure stealth (and in the overwhelming majority of missions it is) then it's also pretty straight forward to figure out how. It becomes repetitive and therefore boring and unsatisfying.

You can spice things up by deliberately starting open combat of course. But the problem with this is you can't clear a map in a satisfying way – the game sends infinite waves of reinforcements against you – and more importantly open combat severely punishes you at the strategic layer because it blows you agents cover, causes injuries which take a long time to heal up and other things that are for one reason or another awkward, difficult and/or expensive to deal with at the strat layer.

So it's basically stealth FTW, which is of course in keeping with the theme of the game, but unfortunately stealth is too easy most of the time.

You can however improve your game by doing certain things:

Play on hard difficulty – this is because you can't hide bodies on hard and that is going to make missions more interesting and cause a few more combat initiations (which although not optimal can be very welcome)

Get into capturing enemy agents alive as soon as possible. There are three separate ways this will improve your game:

a) You need to build the MKULTRA unit at you base to interrogate enemy agents properly. Once you have upgrade it to include a whole range of spy thriller related shenanigans (brainwashing, control phrases, locator beacons etc) to mess with the enemy spy networks and this is a major highlight of the game.

b) The intelligence you get from these enemy agents accelerates your game's progress getting you to meat and potatoes of the game's story faster with less filler routine missions to grind through.

c) Aside from the main story missions (which are on the whole pretty good although there are not that many of them compared to routine fare) the best missions in the game by far are the enemy base assault missions, especially the ones where there are three enemy agents on the map. This is because unlike most other missions these agents are not tagged for you on the map so you have to find them yourself, and this is dangerous and scary. It is decently challenging and pretty satisfying to finish these missions in pure stealth carrying three enemy agents out alive ready for processing in your MKULTRA.

The way you get more of these missions is to implant locators in previously captured enemy agents and release them which after a short time will give you their hideout location.

This is a qualified, quite heavily qualified, recommendation. Not everybody would find this game worth their time and money because it has one unfortunate fundamental problem in an otherwise extremely well designed and (for an indie title) produced game: The game is basically XCOM2 style combat meets Invisible Inc style stealth, but (in very simple terms) the combat is too difficult and the stealth is too easy to be entirely satisfying. However it is also a ripsnorting good cold war spy thriller/mystery with a great story and atmosphere, a very interesting strategic layer that IMHO surpasses XCOM's strat layer by some margin, a mass of spy related mechanics and gismos to play with and just enough good, exiting, challenging missions to carry it. Plus there are certain ways you can play that will increase the “good mission” count somewhat. So if you are into the cold war spy thing, the game is definitely worth a look, because apart from this difficulty problem, it is very good. I am so that is why I enjoyed it through to the end and make this qualified recommendation and I certainly recommend keeping a close eye on this studio in the future, they've got a real blockbuster in them IMO. But if you're looking for something like XCOM but better, it isn't, and if you're looking for something like Invisible Inc but better, it isn't. So some detail on “the problem”. The heart of the problem is that every mission map is both a stealth map and a combat map at the same time – you always start in stealth and if you get caught you go into combat. In the early game when you are new to the mechanics and make mistakes and your agents are still pretty useless this works brilliantly – you get a nail biting tense stealth section followed by a terrifying desperate escape attempt against seemingly insuperable odds. Would that it continued that way, but sadly it doesn't. Once you learn the stealth mechanics it becomes, in most routine missions (and there are a LOTS of routine missions) it becomes far too easy to 100% complete the maps in pure stealth by rinsing a repeating exactly the same formula. If it's possible to do it in pure stealth (and in the overwhelming majority of missions it is) then it's also pretty straight forward to figure out how. It becomes repetitive and therefore boring and unsatisfying. You can spice things up by deliberately starting open combat of course. But the problem with this is you can't clear a map in a satisfying way – the game sends infinite waves of reinforcements against you – and more importantly open combat severely punishes you at the strategic layer because it blows you agents cover, causes injuries which take a long time to heal up and other things that are for one reason or another awkward, difficult and/or expensive to deal with at the strat layer. So it's basically stealth FTW, which is of course in keeping with the theme of the game, but unfortunately stealth is too easy most of the time. You can however improve your game by doing certain things: Play on hard difficulty – this is because you can't hide bodies on hard and that is going to make missions more interesting and cause a few more combat initiations (which although not optimal can be very welcome) Get into capturing enemy agents alive as soon as possible. There are three separate ways this will improve your game: a) You need to build the MKULTRA unit at you base to interrogate enemy agents properly. Once you have upgrade it to include a whole range of spy thriller related shenanigans (brainwashing, control phrases, locator beacons etc) to mess with the enemy spy networks and this is a major highlight of the game. b) The intelligence you get from these enemy agents accelerates your game's progress getting you to meat and potatoes of the game's story faster with less filler routine missions to grind through. c) Aside from the main story missions (which are on the whole pretty good although there are not that many of them compared to routine fare) the best missions in the game by far are the enemy base assault missions, especially the ones where there are three enemy agents on the map. This is because unlike most other missions these agents are not tagged for you on the map so you have to find them yourself, and this is dangerous and scary. It is decently challenging and pretty satisfying to finish these missions in pure stealth carrying three enemy agents out alive ready for processing in your MKULTRA. The way you get more of these missions is to implant locators in previously captured enemy agents and release them which after a short time will give you their hideout location.