Probably the best speculation thus far is that the game is not really a successor to X-Com, but rather Jagged Alliance vs. Aliens.
Which isn't a bad thing, just a bit jarring.
That's what I was thinking about earlier, it does seem like it might be the case. In JA2 you had tough troops who rarely (if ever) died, but it worked because it was very much an action hero movie type game - you had the elite veteran mercs (well, most of them) mowing down dozens of nameless generic mooks.
I don't think it's a good fit for x-com though. Part of the appeal was that it was a desperate war against a terrifying enemy. If x-com is reduced to action heroes vs bumbling cannon fodder aliens... it loses something important. It's one thing to liberate a 3rd world craphole country with minimal losses, but it's quite a different thing to save the whole planet earth from a massive invasion by technologically superior aliens with 4 guys and maybe a token death here and there.
Maybe it could end up being a decent game... but it won't really have the soul of x-com.
Seriously, where is everyone getting the idea that this X-COM will be like that, rather than the classic gameplay? I want sources dammit, not wild speculations. Show me where the developers stated that players would have a small squad of super soldiers instead of more generic cannon fodder.
It's speculation, of course - they aren't going to say much about the game yet, and even when they do it's all going to be sugar coated marketing BS.
But consider what we know for sure:
Console title by big name developer
Heavy class-based RPG elements
High customization
4 soldiers at a time (maybe more later)
Unlimited ammo
No TU's
dumbed down strategic portion (one base, less management, possibly no base construction/customization at all only upgrading)
That screams 'super-soldier' to me. They aren't going to program an RPG class system with heavy customization if they intend soldiers to be relatively disposable. No big developer is going to make a console game where your first few games end up with you getting slaughtered because you do stupid stuff, so it's going to start out holding your hands so you can build your guys up... which means it won't suddenly kill them left and right (since that would make the latter half unreasonably hard for people who ironman and/or unreasonably easy for people who reload 10 times per battle to get perfection).
Furthermore, they aren't going to make the game super-tactical if you can only have 4 guys and they all have unlimited ammo and every single move takes up the same amount of 'TU'. Since there's less room for player tactics, there's going to be more emphasis on your super soldiers and their super stats.
We already know they are dumbing part of the game down, why do you think they won't dumb the rest down?
Again, yes, this is speculation. But based on the type of game big name studio games release (especially for consoles) these days, combined with what we do know... this is what I believe the game will be like. I might be wrong, of course, and I hope I am.... but I'm not holding my breath.