[Debating Xenonauts 2]

Wasn't Terror from the Deep basically "Xcom meets cthulhu mythos"?

[Xenonauts 2 - Harnessing the Cold War]

Frankly, I do not like where this is going. While RussianXenonauts vs USAXenonauts fights sound fun, for me they don't really fit. I would like to see Xenonauts starting as neutral party and then gaining support or angering one of the blocs through actions. I'm thinking along lines of Tropico, where various elements were influencing eastern/western bloc and one could end up as USSR comrade or US friend.

Here we could be managing our relations with two blocs and choose to focus on one of them, gaining their friendship (more money, unique equipment, cheaper bases in their sphere, etc...) and antagonizing the other (resulting in lack of funding, higher upkeep costs in their sphere), or try to stay in the middle with no unique benefits, but also no penalties.

Maybe, just maybe, bloc that got really angered by us could actively hinder our actions, but that's getting close to the line I don't want X2 to cross. I just don't see why they would want for example to shot down our planes.

And idea of aliens coming to Earth for arena fighting, be it against themselves or forcing humans to fight each other, doesn't sound interesting.

[Debating Xenonauts 2]

For Xenonauts 2 I would like you to take a look at Terror from the Deep. No, no, not the setting, or the fact that they somehow managed to make a plot-making-sense sequel (did they?). Look at the things they added in TfoD and just include them in X2. Bigger techtree, terrain with hills (but no bigger maps, in TfoD they were waay to big), maybe the multistaged maps. You can also throw in some aliens unique to this sequel.

I also would like to see more of the cold war aspect. I really liked the fact you moved setting to cold war. It suits the game well. Thread already has few ideas how to enhance the cold war experience. I myself would like to see that funding from eastern/western bloc would be more egoistic. Or rather blogoistic - meaning US will give you more money if you protect western bloc skies, and USSR will give more when crushing aliens in commies' countries.