I just gotta share my enthusiasm, since I'm so happy!
Back in 95-96 somewhere I stumbled across this game at an acquaintance house and got so excited about it that I demanded to get a copy of it. That friend now holds a special place in my heart due to this.
But the years following I put several thousands of hours into the game, also modding/cheating with a hex-editor and creating custom maps and such. It was the best game I've ever played, bar none.
After that we got TFTD, and I loved it as much, but it didn't stick as well. I longed back to the surface, and Apocalypse was a new experience entirely, and I didn't have a good enough computer and couldn't really get into it.
I also tried intercepter (liked it) and some other X-Com games that I can't even remember now.
But I always longed for a new X-Com game, but I supposed the time was over and that it was a memory that would only remain in the past.
Now... When X-Com Enemy Unknown by Firaxis I couldn't get my hopes up, I was too afraid. But once I got to play it I was once again in love.
Admittedly I didn't put as many hours into it since I'm a boring adult nowadays, and my attention span is shorter, but still I loved every hours of the hundreds of hours I put in, and on every playform I played it be it iPad or PC.
Now we get a new iteration, and compared to TFTD it's not simply a re-iteration of the same concept with a different setting, but quite a new approach to it which makes me very excited.
So I hope I didn't annoy too much with this post, but I felt it was due time for me to gush a bit, and express my deepest gratitude to Firaxis for making this happy, and for doing it with passion. May fortune smile upon you, you magnificent bastards!