The good
- Nice strategic combat
- Each soldier has specific role on the battlefield
- There are actual codes that are entered into the console. No "pay to save grind or heal your soldiers" bullshit

The bad
- Game wastes so much player time on long useless animations. Enemy spotting us, soldier running somewhere, soldier taking cover, new enemy on the field. Ugh
- Janky frame rate where loading transitions drop to 20FPS
- Having soldier suffer even 1 point of damage can send them to hospital for a month
- Loosing internet during game ends in game not responding to key input
- Game keeps asking for permission to gather data, even after we already pick "don't agree"
- Majority of missions are fetch quests that re-use the same maps
- Cut-scene animations are stiff and unnatural
- Bug where camera hangs on the ship exterior (pointing to the ground), and it's not possible to continue without reloading earlier save
- During battle absence of window with number of actions soldiers are left with. Have to keep pressing TAB to find soldier we want to use, or find them manually on map
- Central (mission "help" guy) keeps spamming useless stuff like "we are loosing civilians!" on civilian rescue mission. Enormous waste of time
- I had two missions "hanging" even when: 1) I completed requirements (research an object) and 2) mission was not available anywhere on the mission map
- Not possible to put all soldiers in over watch or evacuate them together. Each single soldier need to be clicked on, then clicked the evac button, and then confirm that we really want to evac

Conclusion:
I did want to like this game but it feels it wasted so much of my time. Like c'mon. Half of animations are utterly pointless. I would not try another run if I'd have to choose now. There are not many actual missions that push plot forward, majority are fetch quests that get repetitive fast. Game was not clear enough that DLC actually changes base game, instead of taking place afterwards. So I paid extra for DLC I did not use, as I realized 15h into the game, when I googled for mods to cut /skip animations. And saw "DLC" is basically a patch that changes tons of things in the base game. I know, "my bad". But there should be screen at the start of the game that explains it, instead of showing "X-com 2" and "X-com 2: War of the Chosen" like separate positions. I don't need to go through "best way to play game" guides before I start a game.

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Story:

Game takes place couple years after events from the first game (I don't remember what happened in first game xD So was really confused). Aliens wants to go step forward and do something bad. And we must prevent it. To do so we send soldiers on random missions that destroy alien facilities or rescue random civilians. It's really basic and not interesting. There is no well written antagonist, no big revelations. Some NPCs on board can be interacted with but they are really simple without much backstory.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements	Like half can be obtained during one normal play through Rest are connected to beating missions in specific way e.g. beating late missions that require soldiers with high level and good gear with level 0 squad.
📊 Performance	Constant stutter on loading screens and low frame rate. I don't see anything on screen that would justify having constant 40 FPS as graphic is average and there are not many visual effects.	💾 Save system	One automatic checkpoint and 15 manual save slots. Game can be saved any time and saves-magic is prevented by having all probabilities for actions set before we start our move. So it's not possible to keep re-loading game in hope of better outcome if we try to follow the same sequence of actions. If game rolled that we will miss 90% shot in first turn with this soldiers we will always miss no matter how many times we try to re-load.

🦚 Game customization options	Basic settings.
🌍 Map	Earth act as a map and main hub. It's simplified version with only few regions and clearly marked missions. There is no purpose to it apart from waiting and seeing too long animation of our mother-ship flying between USA and Australia to pick a mission there.
🎮 Controls	Isometric game where soldiers are controlled with mouse. There is weird bug where game will stop to respond to input. It's not even possible to evac on empty map as it requires moving soldiers to the evac zone and clicking on evac button. Requires killing game in task manager as it's not even possible to exit it with a keyboard. Happened like 3 or 4 times in 40h.
📇 Inventory	We can change soldier load out. Usually 2 or 3 different guns per solder type, armor and some single use grenades. What is bizarre is that it's not possible to strip "unused" soldier from all gear (aka switching everything to default) and quickly give it to another soldier of the same class. If our main sniper is wounded we need to go to their character screen, click on each item, change it to default, then go to secondary sniper, click on each item and equip better gear. Again huge waste of time. There is button to un-equip consumables I think on squad selection screen but it does not strip armor and weapons. Inventory window is small and console-like but because there are so few items to choose from it does work well.
🏹 Weapons	We basically just upgrade the same weapon into higher tier. Tiers are unlocked by research and then manufactured by engineers. But at least unlock is game-wise, not soldier-wise. So if we manage to unlock plasma shotgun it will be available to all soldiers using shotguns. Firing animations changes but not how weapon works. So all sniper rifles feel the same. And because enemies get more health with time it never feels like we do huge progress. Some shooting animations can look off, e.g. when small enemy is right in front of us, and soldier fires shotgun above enemy head. Instead of using some animation of pointing down. Weapons are bound to soldier class - sniper, grenadier, engineer, ranger.
🕵️‍♀️ Abilities	Few abilities per soldier on a cool down. Unlocked on level up. Most unlocks are passive bonuses so each soldier ends up with 2 - 3 extra abilities. It's nice to have and execute few enemies with soldiers in one turn by 1) electrocuting enemies, 2) shot everyone in sight 3) use ranger reaper ability to run between weakened enemies and fishing them off. But because some abilities are on quite long cool down there is always question of "will I need it later". Which lead to under-use abilities. It's also really hard to keep soldiers in mission-ready state (small hit can lead to days in hospital) so abilities are unlocked slowly and we often end up using second choice soldiers with low level. Losing few soldiers from main squad late game would be progress breaking, as we would not be able to train new recruits to compete with really buffed late game enemies.
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	No companions. And enemies are average. They will do some basic flanking but their behavior is extremely predictable. If we kill some meat fodder enemy and have sectoid on the map it will always try to raise meat fodder as a zombie instead of shooting or use mind control on us. Which means we can ignore zombie and kill sectoid next turn (together with zombie that will die automatically). One flying enemy will often shot rockets but it's enough to move a step to side to avoid it. When too many enemies spawn on the last map they were just keep hiding instead of moving or attacking, so I never had to deal with too many of them. Combat is challenging but mostly because enemies have more health and numbers than us.
🥊 Combat	Turn based. We pick soldiers, decide if they should move, fire or use abilities. There are half and full covers that lower enemy chance of hitting us, and over watch that will allow soldier to shot moving enemy in line of sight during enemy turn. Enemies sometime send reinforcements by marking ground with a flare. They drop in bundles of 3 and even if we put our every soldier in over watch, with clear line of sight for the enemy landing zone, it will be impossible for us to kill all 3 enemies straight away. Even when it's just drop of basic meat fodder enemy. We can heal soldiers on the battlefield but it only "keeps them alive". If they lose only 1 HP, or are fully healed before extraction they will still suffer random wound that can send them for days or longer into the hospital. So getting hit should be avoided at all cost but it's not easy when enemy always have numbers on their side. I really don't like this system. If I manage to fully heal someone during mission they should not get grave wounds on the summary screen. Sure, send them for a day rest but don't strike them out for 2 or 3 missions. This is kind of "realism" I don't like. Hitting chance and damage is improved with better weapons. And we get more health and protection with better armor. It's not soldier-ability dependent.There are 3 boss enemies in game with ridiculous amount of health and ability to move even during our turn. Which leads to nearly wiping out our team on encounters.

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐☆ - Really basic and crude. Looks really like it's predecessor and use a lot of PC resources to be generated
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - While the voice over is fine accompanying animations are still and unnatural. Combat sounds good but general music or sounds are really generic.
Bugs - ⭐️☆☆ - I dunno. It's not completely unplayable but there are so many reported bugs that were never taken care of. Some of them are still in game "inherited" from the previous game.

The good
- Nice fairystyle graphic
- No connection problems
- No microtransactions to "skip the grind for busy"

The bad
- Impossible to change character after game run is started
- Game started as rogue-lite and idea was changed half way through which lead to weird game mechanics
- 6h for one "run" is wayyy too long
- New spells unlocked slowly and randomly, not possible to pick which spell we'd like to use
- Not possible to go re-play selected levels
- Game is clearly Magicka-inspired but elements combining is really limited and spells never feel "on point"
- Really easy to kill another player by mistake or drop off the map edge
- Monsters have associated elements, and spells from opposite element deal extra damage (like ice vs fire). Enemies can also have elemental shield. Games likes to give fire enemy ice shield, ice enemy lightning shield etc. too often which makes them mostly resistant for our attacks
- Characters unlock passive bonuses on level up but they are really small and it takes ages to gain a level
- Game drops hats worth 1 cent. Good luck selling it to clear Steam inventory. At best they will sit forever in the market queue

Conclusion:
Game starts nicely but then disappoints. New spells and elements are drip fed. Graphic is really nice Trine-like but makes it hard to follow what is happening in the isometric combat. Not possible to change character or spells between maps to better fit into the team. Unlocking new characters requires using specific spells in specific way which is impossible when playing with strangers. Just meh. It is playable but I do think Magicka is way better. Even when it has steeper learning curve.

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Story:

Academy loses parchments and we go to recover them. Woo. Parchments are held by boss-monsters so we complete couple levels, kill boss, get one new spell from parchment and move further. I wouldn't even call it a proper story.

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Gameplay:

💸 Microtranzactions	None	🏆 Achievements	Tied to killing enemies in specific way or using spells in specific way which is either "just" tedious or impossible if you play with random strangers.
📊 Performance	No problems	💾 Save system	One automatic check point per game mode (single / multi). To change character mid-run we need to leave match, delete our save, re-join the game that we left. Game will then ask us which character we want to use. Which is bizarre and really bad game design. If runs are 6h long we should be able to change character at least after each boss fight.

Game is isometric. WSAD is used to move around and mouse to aim + use spells. Few sections require us to make few jumps, but it's nowhere close to be a platformer. Spells are chosen by cycling with keys or mouse scroll. Controls are responsive but it does sometime feel like game did not register our dash away from enemy. What is also annoying is that we dash in the direction we're walking. Not where we we point our mouse. In the middle of frantic fight it's all too easy to walk away from the enemy, see something charging at us, move mouse away to avoid and then end up dashing into enemy that attacked us.

🦚 Game customization options	Basic graphic, music etc. controls.
🌍 Map	There is no map like in other Trine games. Or chapter selection. We need to start and end 32 levels in one go. So "map" is more of a loading screen. Good luck getting all collectibles if one was missed in the middle or end of game.
🎮 Controls
📇 Inventory	We can pick hat (which is pure cosmetic) and staff (which give specific passive bonuses) for our character. There is no inventory apart from those two.
🏹 Weapons	Only weapons are staffs. When enemy is hit with melee staff attack it will always deal the same amount of damage. Game is so zoom away it's even hard to see how staffs look like.
🕵️‍♀️ Abilities	I don't understand how spell-use-game can be so limited in spells. We start with random 3 spells, and recovering each parchment gives us one extra spell (from 3 available). We may play whole run and never see spell we really want to use, even when we already unlocked it. I had run where I did not get single healing spell. We have a "spell book" but it's just a list of already unlocked spells. It's not possible to select which spells we want to use directly form the book. Leveling character up gives some passive bonuses (better defense, more mana or damage) but they are so small it does not feel like we are much stronger even with maxed character.
🤖 Companion and enemy AI	There are no companions. And enemies AI is really basic. Charging enemies charge, rest enemies go to us in straight line and attack if we're within reach.
🥊 Combat	Basic and not interesting. Enemies are dumb, will not try to flank us or combine their own spells. It's too easy to die by accident when dash ended up where we did not want; when another player decides to attack next enemy and we end up on their spell path; when we drop from the map, as rest of the players moved to the opposite part of arena and camera then focuses on bigger group of people. It takes ages to resurrect someone, even when they died by mistake on the map edge. I understand it could be exploited ("accidental deaths when running away from enemy) but just remove some HP in this situation and let person continue to play. Boss fights are as common as it can get. Nothing interesting or innovative. Avoiding few attacks in simple pattern when trying to hit weak point with our attack.

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Technicalities:

Graphic - ⭐️⭐⭐ - I think it's only strong part of the game
Music - ⭐️⭐☆ - Themes are bit remixed but otherwise re-used from other Trine games
Bugs - ⭐️⭐⭐ - I didn't see any but not sure if some things (like not seeing your character when other players move away) is intentional or bug or bad design choice