UFO: Extraterrestrials - Review @ Out of Eight

UFO: ET has been reviewed at Out of Eight, scoring 5/8.  The text is fairly positive and notes the game is "a few tweaks short of a completely recommendable title":

In UFO: Extraterrestrials, you are defending the planet of Esperanza (Earth has long been taken over) against constant alien invasions. The first thing you’ll notice in the game is a complete lack of a tutorial. This is inexcusable, and the manual doesn’t provide enough information for veteran players (where are my weapon lists and research tree?), so if you’re not accustomed to games in the X-COM ilk, you’ll need to restart the game several times before you get the hang of it. Heck, I’ve played other UFO/X-COM games and I needed to restart the game thrice before I got everything “right.” The game plays out in two phases: global base construction and defense and tactical battles. On the global map, you will start with one base and detected alien craft will appear on-screen. Then, you will need to send fighter aircraft to destroy the ship and then send a crew in a transport to deal with the survivors (which are always there if the crash occurred on land). The UFO appearances are randomized, so you can replay the game over again and see a different frequency of alien activity. Of course, the research trees are the same, so each new game isn’t totally different. Esperanza is divided up into nine different countries and your income is dependent on how well you defend them from alien attacks. New bases can only have a limited amount of structures built on them (hangers for aircraft and defenses); this is a design decision to limit the ability to make the human player outpace the alien AI. Whether you like the decision is up to you (personally I don’t have a problem with it), so if you’re used to powering your way through X-COM, the reins will be quite a bit tighter in UFO: Extraterrestrials.