XCOM Enemy Within

I have restarted this campaign more times than I care to admit, and Enemy Within earns every single one of those restarts. Firaxis took a near-complete tactical formula and stressed it in exactly the right places, most critically through the addition of Meld, an alien resource scattered across almost every combat map in self-destructing canisters. The pressure to reach those canisters before the countdown expires actively dismantles the slow, methodical inch-by-inch approach that made the base game feel masterable. You will split your squad, take angles you wouldn't otherwise accept, and occasionally lose a veteran soldier because you got greedy for ten units of Meld. That tension is the point, and it works. What Meld unlocks is where the build-order thinking really begins. Back at base, the Genetics Lab lets you apply up to five Gene Mods per soldier, covering brain, eyes, chest, skin, and legs, each with two options that can be swapped at a cost. These are force-multiplier upgrades: subtle improvements to aim, mobility, and survivability that compound across a full squad. The Cybernetics Lab is louder. Converting a soldier into a MEC Trooper strips their existing class abilities and Gene Mods but drops them into a powered exosuit with high hit points, a flamethrower or kinetic strike module, and the ability to walk into cover rather than hide behind it. The MEC versus Gene Mod resource split is a genuine strategic decision, and the community has been arguing about the correct answer since 2013. There is no correct answer, which is a sign of healthy design. The expansion also adds EXALT, a human enemy faction that runs sabotage operations against your funding nations. Countering them requires sending an undercover operative off the active roster for stretches of time, then launching extraction missions where you defend that agent while they hack satellite relays under fire. The covert mechanic sounds richer than it plays out. EXALT missions are functional but comparatively thin, and the faction never develops into a true second front the way the alien campaign does. It is a side quest dressed up as a subplot. The returning enemy AI still gets a free repositioning turn on discovery, a quirk that has frustrated players since Enemy Unknown and was not addressed here, and some shot geometry through solid cover remains odd. Neither issue is game-breaking, but both are visible. For anyone new to the series, this is a better entry point than it might appear. The tutorial covers the fundamentals of action economy and cover without being condescending, and the Normal difficulty is balanced to teach rather than punish. The real learning curve is resource management at the strategic layer: how much Meld to allocate to MECs versus Gene Mods, which countries to prioritize, when to let a panic counter climb in exchange for a better squad loadout. Those decisions compound over a 20-plus hour campaign in ways that make each run feel meaningfully different. The Second Wave option set, which unlocks after your first playthrough, adds modifiers like randomized soldier stats and ironman-style restrictions for players who want a harder problem to solve. Enemy Within is the definitive version of this game for anyone who found Enemy Unknown clicking but wanted more decisions per hour. The EXALT layer underwhelms and the core AI quirks persist, but the Meld economy and the MEC and Gene Mod build paths add enough decision-making weight to justify the full campaign again even if you already have 40 hours in the original.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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