The squad splits, Sever sacrifices himself, and tells the rest of them to save themselves, warning them of a big .... something ... in their way.

Well, I got to the big ... something ... jello mold ... whatever.  Avoided it, in search of the pick-up point.  Walked around the whole eastern edge of the map.

HOW DO I GET THE REST OF THE SQUAD OFF THE FRICKIN' ZOMBIE PLANET?!

Having never played the X-com games, I have no basis to compare, but so many people have commented on how similar it was, I have no option other than to say it's like that

I generally enjoyed it ... difficult to start it cold, though.  It begins with a very long text/picture conversation among a squad of special-ops soldiers, which I suppose is to give you character background and flavor.  The game then starts in earnest, and you are now in control of five soldiers, all of whom are in mech-suits, sent down to a planet to find out what went horribly wrong in a terraforming job (the workers all became violent zombies).

It was enjoyably creepy, though it was more coherent the second time through.  Apparently each of the soldiers have a different job, and have different possible upgrade promotion tracks.  Would have been nice if that were clear from the outset.

Basically really enjoyed the game (both times I played it -- the first for the creepy unknown horror aspect; the second for the challenge of thinking I'd be able to win it now that I knew I was doing). 

The only problem is, to win the game, you need to get 4 of the 5 soldiers to the pick-up area (the 5th sacrifices himself).  I must've spent about 90 minutes looking around for the pick-up area to no avail.  There's a big monster at the end, which I thought was supposed to be indestructible (conventional weapons simply made it stronger).  But the sacrificed squad member pretty clearly said that the blob was in the way.  Not on top of. 

Perhaps if I spend enough time trying to figure out how to kill the big beastie (it has 9999 hp.  Each squad member has 10-12, if that gives you a clue.  And remember it regens when hit with conventional weapons :p).  So maybe that's the key.  But I was reluctant to invest the time to figure it out.

So, bottom line, yeah it was fun.  Up until not being able to figure out the endgame.