Forum Overview :: Review Requests! :: That is a great question. I'm on the fence but I think I recommend EU first.

[quote name="Fullofkittens"]In my opinion XCom 2 is definitely the superior game and you don't *have* to play XCom: Enemy Unknown to enjoy it. If you only intend to play one of the two: get XCom 2, especially because you have no objection to difficult games. That being said... XCom: Enemy Unknown is a lot simpler and easier than XCom 2...? Playing XCom 2 without having the game mechanics of XCom:EU under your belt would be quite a firehose and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't already mastered the prior game. It throws a ton of game mechanics at you in addition to the tactical stuff when the tactical stuff is already pretty tough (if you don't play it on the easy difficulty). I beat XCom:EU in around 100 hours (multiple restarts over a couple of years) and I'm at like 200 hours of XCom 2 and still don't really know how to manage the midgame well. (I'd actually love to discuss that stuff with people here!) It looks like XCom:EU is ten bucks right now and it's a really great game so I would recommend playing it first if you're open to playing both. There is a certain amount of in-game continuity, the only retcon is that if you beat X:Com EU then, well, you beat the aliens, whereas what XCom 2 presupposes is: what if you didn't? The in-game characters do refer to the events and creatures of the earlier game quite a bit.[/quote]