So far, enjoying it a lot. The general complaint on the campaign doesn't bother me much as I like the "old school" feel of the RTS. Gated units and such. Game play itself was good, the standard missions are fun even though they are long. The hero missions, ehh. Nothing special here for me. More just a nice opportunity to get more tech points.

My big complaint is the save mechanic. They try and fight save scumming, which is great and all, if not for two things. One, its a pretty step penalty losing empire/tech points for failing a mission. Second, hours into a level, through no fault of your own (timed swarms for example) if you end up losing, its hours again to get to the same point. The idea of not returning to an in-missions save is absurd.

Anyway, enjoying it none the less but I can see becoming infuriated with losing hours of work with a game that prides itself on slipping one runner into your town cluster and game over. Hoping that save mechanic gets a bit of a rework.

maybe that wrong, but point of the game in any mode - counts of retry and scores. Savescumming allow you do perfect run. Indeed its too hard to start again on 500\800% difficulty on some maps. Even if yu have additional soldier and sniper - its too long to clear initial space on map.

Except there is no such penalty? The -10% penalty per loss only applies to victory points that have no effect on the gameplay and only serve as a type of high score.

Missed that. Good to know, thought it was across the board.

I don;t get why even bother punishing for save/loading or failing. failure itself seems to me to be enough punishment.