The Bureau XCOM Declassified

🎮 Steam ⏳ 1 hours ⭐⭐ (2/5)

Promising But Unengaging #

This videogame looked promising at first, a 1960s Cold War setting, XCOM branding, and the idea of blending squad tactics with a third-person shooter. This was my first XCOM game and it looked interesting enough to me, because I was used to similar games at the time, but after a few hours, it just didn’t click. The atmosphere feels underused, the story is slow to get going, and the gameplay looked interesting in trailers and reviews, but did not managed to catch my attention long enough. The squad commands are clunky, and the early missions feel repetitive. It’s not bad exactly, but it didn’t hook me enough to keep going, it might please fans of the series though.

Combat Feels Unbalanced #

As I played more, the combat started to feel like it was stuck between two ideas and never fully committed to either. As a shooter, the gunplay lacks weight and urgency, and as a tactical game, it feels too simplified and restrictive. Issuing commands pauses the action, but the options are limited enough that it rarely feels clever or satisfying, and firefights often blur together instead of building memorable scenarios.

Wasted Narrative Potential #

What disappointed me most is how much potential the game leaves on the table. The 1960s paranoia, secret government agencies, and alien invasion themes could have carried a much stronger narrative and identity, but they remain mostly surface-level. Instead of pulling me deeper into its world, the game feels like a cautious experiment that never finds confidence in what it wants to be, making it hard to recommend unless you’re already curious about this odd chapter in XCOM’s history.