@Gelugon_baat: I flagged the comment as well, something I very rarely do.

@zinten: No it doesn't, what it does have is much more scatter with rockets. So the chances of hitting civilians, other aliens unintentionally, and your own squad are much much higher. So you really have to rethink your use of explosives in long war.

@Alurit: For me the biggest adjustment in Long War was the random drops on council missions. Thinman no longer are cannon fodder for your troops in overwatch. They actually drop out of visual range most times and sometimes drop behind you to put you in a lovely pincer movement.

I still remember the nasty surprise I had on Gangplake when two thinman dropped right behind me in the beginning of the map on the battleship. I later got overwhelmed with a cyberdisk and and several drones, several thinman, and floaters if memory serves correct. What was the relatively easy mission after confouding light in vanilla turned into a brutal crucible whitch I failed, on normal. What's incredible is that I've beaten that mission on Impossible Ironman in EW. Longwar is incredible.

@phoenix1289: Meh Xcom has never been a graphical powerhouse. Form over function I say, as long as it's stable enough to use Ironman I really don't care all that much about the graphics.

@RossRichard: Totally agree, try the Long War Mod. It starts off brutal and gets worse.

@csward: This is true, Xcom EU and EW had a serious power creep problem. The beginning game could be brutal on classic and impossible but once you got mechs up and running and had some decent equipment the difficulty decreased drastically. If you haven't already, try long war. The mod starts of brutally hard and just keeps getting harder.

@wyansas: You also had improbably hits of 30% or less I'm sure. It's just that we remember the hits that are supposed to hit more than the one's we got lucky on. The game is fair.

@Arsyad00: Try beating the vanilla game on Ironman Impossible and then try to say that the game is not difficult. Trust me, beating the game on normal doesn't mean you're a tactical genius.

@NoahRoalson: Play Long War then, it really realizes the potential inherent in XCOM.

@sakkie: No kidding. I beat XCOM:EW on impossible ironman and haven't got past the fourth month in long war without quitting and restarting again in frustration. Playing right now on classic and it's just brutal. It's amazing that I have 500 hours invested in xcom and I still haven't mastered it. What a game! I'll probably get xcom 2 for the cool narrative and great graphics, I highly doubt that it will surpass the strategic complexity and tactical difficulty of long war though.