The long war is gud. For a mod...
I recently finished a game using the Dynamic war option wich shortens the campaign overall and it still drags too much imho. X-com was even longer, true but it offered a much deeper gameplay and had a slew of tactical options. Even with LW niu X-com is too repetitive.
Also the mod starts to :derp: at some point, I understand how they strived for an harder game. But in later stage you sometimes get a terrible combination of small map + clustered Alien spawn (the spawning system is shit and nothing can be done unfortunately) and it's not unusual to get hundreds of combined Alien HP
on screen, you have to rely on overwatch cheese and that's even more boring. Auld X-com never felt
unfair, I rarely even lose a mission nowadays since I know the metagame. That tells a lot of a system that used to rape me in the old days.
In LW sometimes the RNG puts you in an unwinnable situation and you either reload or face a total kill with no option whatsoever, not even abandoning the mission.
They also went a little overboard with the MECs class system. 10 different classes for MECs, really? And 2 different chassis that need to be upgraded separately...
Still I would point any friend of mine looking for a good squad tactical game to niu X-com + LW, it's a good game overall.
/popamole
Fake edit: Also Apocalypse, it's way better than the rep it gets. It's a serious
from his predecessors but once you get over that it really opens up as an interesting game. I also like the alien design of apocalypse much more than UD/TfTD, strange bio-weapons and inhuman shapes are cool.