XCOM: Chimera Squad was announced less than two weeks before it was released, and then was sold for an introductory price of $10. You'd think that would garner it some goodwill—given how often people complain about games being hyped up years ahead of release, looking at you Elder Scrolls 6—but instead it seemed to give people just enough time to sharpen their knives.
Even mild reviews called it a "watered down" version of XCOM, while ours said its strategy layer "feels like fussy, abstract number crunching" that was "too much like admin." The strategy portion was its weakest element for sure, but then the harsher user reviews on Steam (where recent reviews give Chimera Squad a Mixed rating) accused it of being "Preachy, badly written SJW crap." That 2020 sure was a time.
