The XCOM games are known for their challenging tactics, roster management and bullshit shooting percentages, so it’s surprising (or really, not surprising at all) to see 2K license out a new mobile game that has absolutely none of those traits.
Instead, XCOM Legends has you rushing automatically from staged encounter to staged encounter, using loads of abilities that have cooldowns and earning all kinds of different in-game currency that can be spent on all kinds of gacha crap.
Which of course it does, because almost every mobile game is now broadly the same thing, so focused have the studies of metrics and economies and player engagement and endorphin hits become.
There are hints of Firaxis’ recent games here, like some of the background art and unit design, but then this game pretends those never existed canonically, as its plot description is:.
This...isn’t XCOM, and XCOM isn’t exactly a household name, and even if it were, the actual XCOM games are already available on mobile!
Just because a game is different or not what you want, doesn’t make it shit.