When comparing XCOM: Enemy Unknown vs X-COM: UFO Defense, the Slant community recommends XCOM: Enemy Unknown for most people. In the question“What are the best Turn-Based Tactics games on Steam?” XCOM: Enemy Unknown is ranked 2nd while X-COM: UFO Defense is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose XCOM: Enemy Unknown is:
There are quite a few add-ons available for XCOM, including the Enemy Within expansion pack.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Assortment of add-on content available
There are quite a few add-ons available for XCOM, including the Enemy Within expansion pack.
Pro Effective resource management mechanics
Resource management feels like a juggling act, in the best way possible. Users have to make hard decisions on what options to give priority to, as they all will effect gameplay in some manner.
Pro Death is permanent
Death is very permanent in XCOM, meaning if a player looses a high level player mid game that they may have a pretty tough time advancing past that point.
Pro Very deep strategy
Keeping track of more than a dozen soldiers with 10 skills, their inventories (including ammo count and weight), dynamic visibility, line of sight, destructible terrain, consequences of missed shots (like friendly fire or destroyed loot), etc. quickly overwhelms noobies, putting the real strategy masters in the limelight. And this is just a battle out of many, with base building, personell management, logistics, reconnaissance, research and manufacturing between them.
Pro Active open source clone
The openxcom team have re-implemented the entire game and fixed many of the longstanding bugs in the original. It allows you to play on modern machines and in much higher resolution. A copy of the original game is still required for the assets.
Pro Dark humor
Seems to have started the "evil aliens" trend.
Cons
Con Proper choices not obvious until after the fact
Choices that effect the game are not obvious when they are happening and once realized is too late.
Con Artwork
The artwork is not to everyone's liking.