I was actually introduced to X-COM by UFO: Alien Invasion. I would have been playing it in high school, I think. The graphics at the time where a lot better, as was the UI. Plus: Free, and I didn’t have a lot of money in high school, and GoG and Steam were not around yet. That said, in 2005 or so, the graphics where not bad. They have aged poorly in the last decade though, as 3D models do, while the X-COM graphics are still charming 2D work.
The biggest flaw is that you can’t do damage to buildings or UFOs. Also now that OpenXCom has fixed up the UI, I’m noticing some rough spots.
On the plus side, they got someone who is pretty good at writing to do the UFOpedia entries, and those are quite nice. They give much more of sense of weight and background as to why you are the only ones responding, why you don’t have a network of bases and whatnot.
It also cleans up some stuff like having to assign research through each base, instead making research assignments a global issue.
