Jake Solomon was more successful with his design choices for XCOM than Jon Shafer was for Civ V, but it really did astound me to see the interview where he said he thought most players would only go through the game once. For a bunch of self-professed XCOM fans they certainly didn’t seem to have connected with the original in quite the way everyone else did.

Additionally a further criticism (which you did touch on) is they were are somewhat heavy handed with guiding the player forward toward completion by using the Objectives on the situation screen. I would have preferred to be nudged rather than have a neon sign blazing the direction I should go. I think they’ve over-compensated for that when looking at the original.