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[Microcline]

Here's a slightly cleaner copy of the review.  It's Jim Sterling, so take what he says with a grain of salt.

The Bureau seems to have tripped every red flag of a bad game.  It's got a review embargo until after launch (compare this to how much we saw of Enemy Unknown before release and how open the devs were), a long, schizophrenic dev cycle comparable to Duke Nukem Forever or Colonial Marines, and the gameplay doesn't look very entertaining.  You've got tedious corridor popamole and while you can command your allies, the real time nature of the game means that you're constantly fighting with their AI instincts telling them to fuck everything up.  I look at the videos and think "this squad based tactics vs aliens thing seems cool, but they seem to have cocked up the gameplay and interface".  Then I realize the few good points were done better in Enemey Unknown.

2K, tell us about Enemy Within.  Tellllllll Ussssssss

[Neonivek]

It's got a review embargo

Red flag? That is like a red blaring siren. It just is not done UNLESS you got something to hide.

[bluejello]

here is a video review of it from a month or so ago, no dialog sound in at the time of the review, it does shows the first bit after the tutorial section if I recall correctly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzlRvnwHuYA

[Thexor]

Here's a slightly cleaner copy of the review.

Oy now, it's only been 4 posts since I linked that. I've gotta learn to not post near the bottom of a page!  _{I kid, I kid.}

Basically, it sounds like the strategic game (world map, choose your missions, etc. etc.) has been largely removed in favour of linear storytelling. In a game with permadeath, linear storytelling is already a bad idea - lose one veteran when there are no optional missions left to train up new rookies and you're screwed. It's an even worse idea when the story you're trying to tell isn't very good! Meanwhile, they've got a tactical game where it's hard to issue orders, thanks to the real-time gameplay, but where the AI is terrible, so you have to issue orders or your elite troops run to their (permanent) deaths.

The weirdest part is, it's not like this game was rushed out the door. It looked pretty close to finished during the first disastrous gameplay videos, and even if some of that was scrapped, it's been a long time since the first announcement. The review claims that major features (strategic game, controls, even combat) feel incomplete and unfinished. If true, it sounds like plain incompetence on the developer's side - they've had plenty of time to finish their game!

[Neonivek]

What happened is basically what happened to Devil May Cry

Where they tried so hard to please the fans that they ended up REALLY messing over their product. SURE they weren't going to be any good anyway, but a flawed single vision works better then the garbage that followed (though in DmC's case it was just the characterization.. There is sort of a reason why one recent crossover used the old Dante)

[Krevsin]

I was cautiously optimistic about The Bureau, but I knew something like this would happen. I would like to play a tactical-shooty-X-COM game which pits you in the boots of an X-COM operative, if done right. This.... well, let's say it has left my knickers less than moist. The game looks like it's picked up the Realism Plague and ditched all the colours in favour of the traditional modern FPS Brown, Grey & Gritty palette. This was the first warning light. The second warning light flared when I saw what the enemies look like. Brown, Grey, Generic aliens with no colour or character to them. The third one was accompanied by a klaxxon when I saw that the base management was done by walking around the base and talking to NPCs instead of the faster, less tedious overview that worked so well in the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Then I saw that character customization was shallow and dull.

But the final nail in the coffin were the characters. Carter is what most games nowadays call "mature", in that he is a whining pile of self-hate and misery with a generic tragic backstory and nothing even remotely resembling likeabilty about him, the Outsiders are uninspired, boring and brown while most of the support cast is bereft of even more personality than Carter himself.

But then again, I only played through 3 hours of this stuff before my cousin threw me out so he could finally get his hands on the game he pre-ordered. I pity the poor sod, for if the game doesn't do a 180 turn after the first 3 hours, what he is in for is a bland, brown, generic shooter that has some elements of tactical combat and is full to the brim with boring, brown, unlikeable characters.

[Neonivek]

The game looks like it's picked up the Realism Plague

Honestly... Anyone who says "Brown is real" probably should get their eyes checked.

[Kaje]

An equally scathing review over at RPS:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/wot-i-think-the-bureau-xcom-declassified/

[Cthulhu]

To be honest I thought the very early videos looked pretty good.  I liked the tar aliens, I liked the aesthetic, the investigation elements, it looked like it had potential.

That deleted review I think describes the sense I get from the game now best.  It can't decide what it is.  It stayed in development hell too long and lost its vision.

[Sharp]

Not surprised, I thought the XCOM reboot was like Mass Effect Tactics so unsurprising to me that this just seems like Mass Effect.

[Krevsin]

I'd love to see a game where you take one random mook in the XCOM organisation and take control of him during a mission. With all the perks of the X-Com series, like his shit shooting skills in the beginning, panicking and seeing your comrades picked off one by one until only you remain.

Then you'd die and take another mook. Now THAT would be an X-Com shooter done proper.

[Virtz]

I'd be lying if I said I was sorry this turned out bad. Fuck them for the "Americuh!" origin story tacked onto something that already had a better origin story.

[timferius]

I agree with above points in that I was actually looking forward to the game based off the first tech demo. Eerie 50s neighbourhoods, strange aliens, investigation. A sort of Thriller atmospher. I had imagined that, for the most part, you'd be facing new threats most missions that you'd have to hunt down, figure out, and contain. Maybe to the point where you were powerful enough to go full on E.T., bring in a team of guys in suits, set up a perimieter, and contain anyone possibly contaminated, and do research on the spot.
Oh well.

[deoloth]

I agree with above points in that I was actually looking forward to the game based off the first tech demo. Eerie 50s neighbourhoods, strange aliens, investigation. A sort of Thriller atmospher. I had imagined that, for the most part, you'd be facing new threats most missions that you'd have to hunt down, figure out, and contain. Maybe to the point where you were powerful enough to go full on E.T., bring in a team of guys in suits, set up a perimieter, and contain anyone possibly contaminated, and do research on the spot.
Oh well.

I hated the FPS at first, as did a lot of dedicated fans, because they were bringing back a strategy franchise as a first person shooter!

But after getting Enemy Unknown I want to play the first person shooter I saw. It had a very interesting take on the genre that could have been done well. The anger was just that they took a game and shoe-horned it into the FPS genre making the dedicated fans feel like it was... a cash in move. If they announced Enemy Unknown first I think we would likely have saw the original version of The Bureau as the anger over it is what prompted it to have been changed versions would not have happened.

[timferius]

I agree with above points in that I was actually looking forward to the game based off the first tech demo. Eerie 50s neighbourhoods, strange aliens, investigation. A sort of Thriller atmospher. I had imagined that, for the most part, you'd be facing new threats most missions that you'd have to hunt down, figure out, and contain. Maybe to the point where you were powerful enough to go full on E.T., bring in a team of guys in suits, set up a perimieter, and contain anyone possibly contaminated, and do research on the spot.
Oh well.

I hated the FPS at first, as did a lot of dedicated fans, because they were bringing back a strategy franchise as a first person shooter!

But after getting Enemy Unknown I want to play the first person shooter I saw. It had a very interesting take on the genre that could have been done well. The anger was just that they took a game and shoe-horned it into the FPS genre making the dedicated fans feel like it was... a cash in move. If they announced Enemy Unknown first I think we would likely have saw the original version of The Bureau as the anger over it is what prompted it to have been changed versions would not have happened.

Ya, I have to wonder if the developers got confused, and thought people hated the game they showed, instead of the crash of the "NEW X-COM....... oh wait, it's a WHAT?"