XCOM 2: Alien Hunters Review (servvsumbrarum)
**Received as part of the XCOM Bundle*
Greetings! The DLC ‘Alien Hunters’ for XCOM 2 is an odd DLC for me. I love XCOM 2 and would think that any DLC is not only welcome but a great addition but looking over the content on offer here I wasn’t so sure. Were my concerns justified? Let’s discus!
Get the Flamer, the Heavy Flamer: At a glance this DLC is honestly a bit disappointing; three new unique weapons and armors along with a single unique mission and a temporary modifier for future missions. First off, the unique mission is interesting and does add a bit of story to a fairly bare experience in regards to the narrative. It allows some additional bridging between the original game but I felt it lacking. To be fair the entire story of XCOM in general isn’t exactly a narrative treat but we come here for the gameplay. Adding to that you end up with some additional weapons, all of which are middling usefulness due to only having one of them each and the armor is more or less the same, even though two of the three armors are purchasable the third does not appear to be and that is the one that actually is of use. The most interesting mechanic of the DLC is that after completing the mission you will encounter ‘Rulers’ who are boss variants of the tougher enemy types that upon destruction allow you to build said armors. The downside is that I’ve read many struggling with these in the early game (I didn’t experience this as I didn’t do the DLC till mid-late game).
It’s really hard to gauge this DLC, it means well but there really isn’t ‘a-lot’ of content here as I would have liked to see at least a handful of missions and the tile set for the mission could have been used to expand new mission types. Ultimately this DLC is about $7 if you divide it up and you are probably going to be buying the bundle if you are reading this…so overall I’d still say it’s worth it, just be sure to wait till mid-game to start it. Enjoy!