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The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

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  • Audience-Alienating Premise: The game was widely dismissed on sight when it was first announced due to taking X-COM — a cult series beloved for its intricate Turn-Based Tactics and Resources Management Gameplay — and only reviving it after a decade of dormancy as a cover shooter game designed to ape the likes of Mass Effect than its own namesake series. The backlash was so intense that it led to more focus on the development of the more faithful revival through XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and while Enemy Unknown was widely acclaimed and a major commercial success (additionally helping revive Turn-Based Strategy games in the west), The Bureau was met with mixed reviews and bombed in sales as it was simply not a game anyone really needed or wanted.
  • Game-Breaker: Both Plasma Pistols, but the Light pistol in particular, due to dealing heavy damage, having a large clip size, oh, and it's available after the first main mission. Also a case of Bribing Your Way to Victory since it's a piece of DLC bonus content. Though it is slightly balanced out by its relatively low ammo pool.
  • Porting Disaster: If you're on PC and don't have an Nvidia graphic cards, expect the game to barely run better than a slideshow. Even on completely optimum hardware that's several years more current than the game itself, it can still turn into a slideshow in certain areas (the university campus is one of the earliest offenders) if you don't have the right graphics settings disabled.
  • So Okay, It's Average: Generally seen as at least enjoyable, but definitely inferior to other games in the genre such as Mass Effect.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • The initial reaction to the games announcement. The release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown won back the crowd, but that's another story.
    • Ironically, when The Bureau was revealed, some gamers complained about the removal of investigation aspects, alteration of gameplay to make it play like a low-budget Mass Effect 1 knockoff, and alteration of enemies to make it more like Enemy Unknown despite the questionable canonicity.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: XCOM in the game seems to be fighting an uphill battle with no chance of winning and odds always in the alien's factor... until, if you made the right decision, the game turns into a Surprisingly Happy Ending with all the alien influence disappearing as well as the afflicted civilians survived and healed.
  • Vindicated by History: A mild example. In spite of the Troubled Production and the game's mixed reviews at launch, nowadays it's liked by a significant subsection of the XCOM, being viewed as a fun, retro sidestory in a different genre.
  • The Woobie: Bureau Agent Ennis Cole, who's the star of several of the videos. Cole's wife Ann and son Kevin are victims of an alien attack on Pima, New Mexico, and were either killed or infected by the Sleepwalker virus and put down. Cole has a Heroic BSoD, and is scrambled for a mission before he can submit his resignation. He ends up walking into an alien ambush. The last thing heard on the radio is a single gunshot.

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