I take back everything bad I said about this game. I love the art even though every soldier is wearing a spacesuit, thick armor and....no helmet, still cool though. The "simplified" tactical gameplay is justified when you think about the flow of the shootout. It makes planning your attack/defense easier rather than counting the time units as was seen in the original. I love how they gave more of a story to the game rather than paragraphs of backstory to read through.

A few minor quirks though. I kind of miss being able to shoot what you want too shoot though (e.g. shooting a wall to destroy a target's cover or a gas tank for aoe explosions). The UI and game controls are a bit strange. Getting used to confirming every command is a little irritating unless you start using the hotkeys. Throwing a grenade without the screen getting crazy is why I don't use them. And finally, having very weird angles to shoot from is disturbing. Being able to shoot an alien through the body of your teammate is weird.

But as a whole, this game was a really good purchase especially when it went on a 20% sale on steam. Since the older posts are no longer showing up in this MB, I totally agree with the OP that this game is a worthy successor to the original Microprose Game.