The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is an interesting hybrid between a traditional third-person shooter and a strategic game, with elements of role-playing game; but the impression is a game crippled by a troubled production. If you are in search of a different action videogame, maybe The Bureau is the game are you searching for.

The tactical shootouts are very entertaining.

OK, so The Bureau is different to what XCOM fans would be used to, but does that make it a bad game? As a squad based shooter, The Bureau is reasonably good.

2K Marin has done their best with the almost impossible task to create a narrative rich, tactic driven TPS that justifies the name of "XCOM". The result is a decent and professional effort from a team that could have done better without being tied to that name.

For all that The Bureau get’s wrong, it is at least a passable tactical shooter with a novel, well-realised setting. If you love the golden age of science-fiction, there’s something here for you. Just don’t expect it to ever get truly interesting, because XCOM Declassified never captures what XCOM is all about.

Most of the pieces for an interesting, compelling experience are there, but they simply never come together to create a memorable affair.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified desperately wants to be liked, but by failing to satisfy in any direction, all it succeeds in being is a disappointment. It wants to be a strategy game without being a strategy game, it wants to be a shooter without being a shooter, and it wants to be XCOM without being XCOM. As such, it is nothing. It's an inconsequential waste of time that does nothing for anybody, and saying that makes me feel guilty because its cloying pleas to not be hated are worthy of pity.

1st review - Oct 19, 2013 / Score - 7 Boring, unlogically created plot, boring main hero, boring missions. Boring, boring, boring, boring. And ending is also boring... I am really sad I've preordered this nonsense. The only thing I relly liked fighting/leveling system, but this game is really mediocre and I am pretty not sure I will replay it soon enough... 2nd review - Dec 25. 2015 / Score - 10 It took me 2 replays with half a year and 1.5 year periods to re-estimate the game completely =) Also I bought all DLCs =) Hangar DLC is good for those, who'd prefer to spend more time shooting without extra dialogues in The Bureau, and also it's quite a good prequel to the main story :) Game's replay-ability is fine (as you can see I had re-played it 3 times already, even that I didn't like it on my first round) :) Advice: replay games that left unsure impression after a long period of time, you may really change your mind =)

While not your traditional XCOM style of game, I thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough of this game and the story told within it. Trying out the different powers and weapon combinations was also a lot of fun for me and game was enjoyable enough to play through a second time a few months after my first run through.

It is novel to use alien weapons and has a good sense of blow when using weapons. but Both allies and enemies have terrible A.I. The game is not bad, but I recommend buying it at a discount.

A below average mess that is a playable piece, but rides the line between being an actual game, and garbage worthy of the disposal unit.

Recuerdo cuando supe de este juego; leí de él en una revista hace algunos años donde aún ni sabía de XCOM ni cuándo iba a salir. Después de un cierto tiempo fue como si este juego desapareciera y nunca volvía a saber de él, asumí que el juego había sido cancelado, hasta que recientemente leí nuevamente del juego. No fue bien recibido, tiene problemas, tiene demasiados problemas que se han exacerbado con el tiempo. Técnicamente no tuve problemas con el juego, pero en términos de diseño, este es un juego que no sabe decidir si ser un juego de disparos en tercera persona o alternativamente un juego de estrategia similar al titular XCOM. Idealmente hubiesen separado este juego y se hubiese preservado esto como un juego aparte y único, en cambio, se intento mezclar la experiencia, pero de formas bastante poco constructivas. Entonces se tiene un juego que no tiene mecánicas bien implementadas o desarrollaras de juegos de acción de disparos en tercera persona, con un sistema extraño y confuso de estrategia que no se acerca a la calidad de los juegos de XCOM. Una pena por que el concepto del juego parece bastante bueno, es tan solo la ejecución lo que lo acabo.