And this is why I'll be playing it more: the combat, the heart of it, is really damn good. Shootouts are varied and chaotic, the tactical challenge real enough that I've never felt like I lost by chance, but because I didn't bring enough dudes, or put too much pressure on one key merc, or didn't cover someone's position properly. I replayed a couple of shootouts just for the fun of it and to experiment. I'm enjoying it! Where XCOM bored me senseless, and succeeding in Phoenix Point made me feel more spiteful than triumphant, I love every win, and a hell of a lot of the individual moments where Ivan zaps two dudes in a turn, Vicky flanks a sucker, or Ice utterly baguettes a dude with his machete.
I think it's a success. It's a strong push to move the genre beyond the model we've been stagnating in for years that still acknowledges the strengths of that design (so far that it copies some things I wish it wouldn't, like the godawful panic system). It will be divisive for that, and may alienate the most obdurate of the purists too, neither of which it really deserves. Tonally, it's mostly a miss, and aspects of its UI like travel, merc selection, transferring, and splitting inventory need another quality-of-life pass. But the combat / strategy / management elements are enough to carry it through those disappointments, and I suspect to keep me coming back for quite some time.