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Despite similar aspects at first glance, both games are very differents in their approaches. Phoenix Point is not XCOM3. It is a whole different beast, with some rough edges which may be difficult to tame for the average joe.
Its also hard to compare the game to firaxis XCOM's because there are only few things that can be compared and with exception to things i mentioned above Phoenix point is pretty much inferior to XCOM 2. One of things is he story which to be completely being honest (in comparison to Firaxis XCOM's, XCOM's from the 90's, UFO trilogy from altar and Xenonauts) freaking sucks and makes even less sense when you think about it.
Here is no idiotic things like unit take damage and cant be used during 30 days, if unit survive then it can be used, all HP can be restored by medicaid
As result armor is more importat here.
Here you can manage which properties are more important for unit: mobility, will power(give you to use special skils) or HP+weight
Additional properties which give armor can significantly chenge your game.
And many other differentials which make this game more interesting, especially XCOM without longwar.
Which means you are forgeting few key principal flaws of PP and topic was about comparing it to XCOM 2/WOTC.
tactical - which has the least faults only three
* The maps are too small to and generally even if they use procedural generation the limitation of said generation means the maps will feel repetive very quickly + small maps means less viable options of tactics to implement
* The evolving enemies current mechanics means that you face tier 1 enemies(and it is even more true for later tiers) that are essentially in later stages an armored sponges which does not give any sense of progression.
* Very few mission types in comparison to vanilla XCOM EU from 2012(and don't get me started on EW, Vanilla XCOM 2 and WOTC)
Geoscape - aka the weakest point of PP
* Base building is just for show since PP uses what i would call hybrid system between Classic UFO:EU and Firaxis XCOM:EU. And in my personal opinion this system is complete
garbage because in reality the whole research and production is global which means base specialization and base personel management are thrown out of the window. To me if they wanted to do things better with global research and production they should adopt UFO:Afterlight system of one highly customizable base and thats it.
* Research is a total letdown where a lot if it is just a pointless busy work to make the game longer and a bit more difficult due to stunted player progression. Also until the DLC came out that are now standard with year one edition the progression virtually did not exist, because there was no tier 2 & 3 so to speak of.
* Map interaction pales in comparison to Vanilla XCOM 2 and WOTC. This includes the countdown timer interaction.
It's also a lot more sophisticated in terms of the tactical map where you will not be getting a muton shooting your soldier through 3 walls, a bookcase and an open door and hitting him at 45% since Phoenix Point accounts for intervening objects rather than Firaxis's "only the square you are on counts".
In terms of soldier graphics, PP is also superior in that you don't get soldier graphics in odd places, they are a lot more stringent about that, so nothing like XCOM's nutjacking. It's also impressive that the weapons are not locked to a class like in XCOM, if you want a sniper to carry a shotgun, go right on ahead. XCOM can't do that.
On the other hand, like others have said, the story is a bit of a letdown and the "only 3 other "countries" in the world" politics is quite disappointing too. The pre-placed bases isn't to everyone's taste though I give it a bare pass as it does tie in with the story, you are exhuming your old bases and not creating new ones like X-Com: UFO Defence.
All in all, it's not totally bad, though the story could use a little more polish. And I don't mean the language. And I won't mind a lot more "minor factions" like maybe "Pure" havens and more "small aligned neutral states" that are separate from the 3 "superpowers".
PP is not comparable to XCOM-2 at all, in that XCOM-2 is several orders of magnitude the better game overall.
Having said that, the other excellent answer was the fourth one. The "free aim" mechanic is pretty darn nice as an idea, and I do really rather like it. I wonder if someone could write that as a mod into XCOM-2? Now that would be a challenge for a mod author, that's for certain - perhaps it is too complex to be achievable. The fact that the action point system is more flexible in PP is another point in its favour, for the most part.
But if anyone needs any non-subjective evidence, try looking at the size of the playerbase in each case, even allowing for the fact that XCOM-2 is quite a few years old now.
None of this means PP is not a fun game in its own way.
I also remember that XCOM2 had a problem with super-fast enemies. If you popped a pod with the last action of your turn, the enemy can "take cover" near your soldier and on their turn instantly flank and kill them.
IMO XCOM is not magnitudes better, they both have areas where they excel in and areas where they are weak in.
The thing people complained the most was timed missions.
XCOM2 has a magnificent community of talented modders, which allows the players to give a different flavor to each campaign, with different weapons, classes, cosmetics, maps, gameplay, etc... It is also worth mentioning a huge number of bug fixes.
In short, nobody would play XCOM2 anymore without Mods. XCOM2 with Mods is more or less on the same level as PP, keeping in mind what was said earlier.
I have both games. I play both games (200+ mods on XCOM2 though). I recommend both games.
in pp the first battle is the easiest battle, then the difficult is a up scaling curve like the stock markets, there are ups and downs but its average goes up over time.
Missions are generated randomly: there is a "challenge rating" for each battle. The game will pick random enemies which will together fill the "challenge rating" quota (e.g. to generate a mission of challenge rating 10 you can take 5 enemies with rating 2 or 10 enemies with rating 1 or any other suitable combination). Afterwards, the game will randomly spread those enemies across the map without any logic. You can start a mission with your snipers facing the biggest "boss-type" enemy while your heavy soldiers will be in the back. Sometimes it plays in your favour, sometimes not...
Mission variety
Phoenix Point knows a few mission types but developers have added timers into almost all of them. Heaven defence mission? Either save civilians before they will be killed or kill enemies before they will destroy a facility. Most other missions have constant reinforcements. That, unfortunately, strongly pushes for raising your Speed (mobility) asap. It doesn't just help with positioning in combat but also helps you to finish the mission earlier and thus making it easier (avoid more reinforcements). The difference in the effectivity of your soldiers depending on their Speed is incredible. See the small maps paragraph.
You don't need to "activate" enemies
Enemies act even when you haven't seen them yet. In combination with the random placement, it makes missions more RNG, e.g.: It could happen that a facility you are supposed to protect will be destroyed before you will be able to reach it, even the very first turn... or soldiers you are supposed to save will be killed before you will see them (especially in the early game). Raise Speed of you soldiers.
Enemies hit like a ton of bricks
Combat is unforgiving. You generally can't afford to let enemies get their turns. Even the basic enemies are capable of killing your best soldier within a single turn if you let them. Turns vary a lot in difficulty - you will aggro more enemies (which can happen even at the beginning) and you will have a hard time.
Bullet trajectories
It makes targeting satisfying. You have RNG in your hands. On the other hand, it slows down the gameplay. The location targeting effects are bound to fully destroying the location, not just hitting. It is also limited to: weapon unusable, disabling related ability, Movement or Will Power penalty. There are no damage multipliers or temporal effects like losing action points, decreasing accuracy, falling, or dropping a weapon. Consequently, the decision of which location will you target is quite straightforward: the head for Siren (to remove her Mind Control ability) and the lowest armour location (or easiest to hit) for almost everything else.
The cover offers only limited protection. Its defensive capability is strongly dependant on the angle of attack. If there will be an enemy sniper with a laser rifle, the only thing you can do is break the line of sight completely (or kill him immediately).
Enemies
Have you ever thought about why developers generally don't use artillery attacks across the whole map, constant enemy spawns or invisible snipers? No? You should try Phoenix Point to know why.
On the other hand, face-hugging fragger is amazing. It is a low health agile mind-controlling monster that can be removed by bashing it with another allied unit. It can be also dealt with by targeting fire.
Small maps
Maps are quite small. During some missions, you will aggro almost all enemies as soon as you spawn... and if not all of them immediately, you will aggro them once you will try to do something with those which are already in your proximity (certain story missions are really bad with this). It creates significant difficulty spikes. If that happens, just restart the mission completely - it will generate differently.
Max Speed (movement) is 29 which will allow you to basically cross lots of maps within a single turn (some maps are bigger). If you will apply Frenzy ability (you should) you can have up to a massive 43 squares movement. Many mid/late game missions will be finished within 2 or 3 turns... but turns generally takes a longer time to be played.
Exploit the huge movement and powerful skill before enemies will act or you will suffer.
Tactics
Do you remember when you planned an ambush in XCOM2? Or how you have carefully placed soldiers before opening a door? It is much more straightforward in Phoenix Point. Most missions have some kind of timer: a facility will be destroyed, civilians will be killed or there will be new enemies each turn. You need to run forward and you really want to kill enemies immediately once you see them since there is a decent chance of fatal consequences of their actions. Phoenix Point has very strong skills. The right combination of class, skills, equipment and stats will allow your soldier to clear the whole map within 2 or 3 turns.
Overall, turns in Phoenix Point takes longer, there will be fewer of them in battles and they have stronger consequences (it is much easier to lose a soldier).
Well, that is how Snapshot calls it. In fact, it is only faction-relationship. If you will please a faction, your relationship with them will rise. If you will do hostile actions or support a rival faction, it will drop. After raising the relationship to a certain threshold (25, 50, 75, 100) they will give you a mission to "graduate" with them:
Each faction will become progressively more aggressive towards the other two but they will ask you to raid their opponent heavens from the beginning. By attacking other faction, you can get their specific research, extra resources or additional aircraft from the raided faction and also increase the relationship with the faction who asked you to do it. Such hostile actions can lead to a war with the raided faction.
In the end, "diplomacy" only means a decision which faction you will ally with. It can be even all of them but doing so will reduce your options to raise a relationship to defending their heavens and destroying pandoran bases only - and thus making the progress with them slower and start of the game more difficult.
Economy
The narrative of the game is a world that runs towards its doom. Developers on purpose replaced sustainable economy with survival mechanics. Everything is expensive, even magazines for your weapons. There is no way how to generate income. Actually, there is... you can play Monopoly and travel from one heaven to another and trade with them: buy cheap, sell expensive. It is tedious clicking and the only reason for 3 easily swappable resources (food, material, tech). In the end, you will probably use trading only to get a required combination (e.g. some missions will randomly give you more food while you need tech so you will trade it).
The proper "income generators" are random events (see Exploration), random scavenging missions and heaven defences.
Exploration
"Exploration", similarly to "Diplomacy", is another misnomer.
When you start your campaign, the game will generate the whole globe with all points of interest and positions of all faction heavens. Most of them will be hidden and you have very limited ways how to reveal them (aka exploration):
- Satellite Uplinks reveals them around bases
- visiting factional heaven will reveal nearby points of interest (you need to know the location of the faction heaven first)
- if you will raise the relationship with a faction to 25 (and do the graduation mission) they will give you the location of all of their heavens (very useful)
In the beginning, you will see only a handful of them in the proximity of your base (your Satellite Uplink will slowly reveal more of them). Why do you want to see them? Hidden faction heavens don't call for help when they are attacked (significant problem). You can't visit points of interest if you don't see them. Both of those are (as mentioned before) proper income generators. Moreover, any locations (even pandoran bases) serves as gas stations for your aircraft so if you want to reach any distant location you need to have those locations already revealed along the way otherwise you will not be able to reach it.Basically, "exploration" in Phoenix Point means:
The other meaning of the word "exploration" in Phoenix Point is clicking to a point of interest (which you have already revealed) and thus getting a random event: usually a bit of text and some resources, sometimes a mission. There isn't much strategy in it. Just try to "explore" points of interest as much as you can.