All, just my humble opinion:
What I liked more than original XCOM in Xenonauts: air combat. Great stuff.
I don't think Xe2 needs to change a lot to be successfull. More simulation vs scripts, bigger more complex tech tree, longer psi phase, closer to the roots in general would be great.
Phenix like alien doesn't sound fun at all, alien that is much easier to kill in melee (possibly with a different weapon, e.g. as lobsters in XCOM: Terror From The Deep) would be.
Unity engine was the reason I can't play sequel to "The Longest Journey"... Hopefully it won't be as bad with Xe2... =(
I'm shocked someone is seriously asking to dumb game down... There are Firaxis thingies, for those into that...
