The first XCOM is better as all the timers annoy me in this one. There seems to be clocks counting down or up everywhere. I enjoy building my base and sneaking around shooting the aliens in the face. It's hard when there is always a timer that makes it a rush. The War of the Chosen expansion has a mod called Avatar Be Gone that removes the worst timer and it is also possible to lengthen some of the timers in the expansion. Without the mod I would not have played this game at all.