I've been keeping tabs on this game since it was announced, and everything I've seen about it so far seems promising. It's clearly xcom-inspired, they've confirmed permadeath roster management, and they seem to be hinting at the difficulty.
Why my optimism is cautious:
-
Star Wars games are some of the most hit-or-miss games out there. Sometimes they're amazing, other times they're incredibly mediocre.
-
We don't know much about replayability. XCOM is extremely replayable because the generated maps, missions, enemy placement, etc. can make each run feel unique. If Zero Company's missions are too story-driven and linear, I worry that I'll bounce off of it.
-
While they've hinted at the difficulty, I really hope they're not afraid to push the player (in whatever the challenge mode is). Many games phone-in higher difficulty modes by just tweaking health/damage sliders, unlike in XCOM, where they even brought in a dedicated director to make sure Legendary felt right.
Mechanicus? Yeah, I played some of the first one, and it just didn't feel as polished and play tested to me.
40k games are another good example of an IP with inconsistent quality.
In 40K defense. It's because they are designed by so many different Devs with minimal input from Games Workshop.
I remember hearing that games workshop did an opera Winfrey with the 40K lisenses to anyone who wanted to use it and a lot did fall flat but thinks like Vermintide and Total Warhammer were the standouts.
I think that's the case with LucasArts too. They just hold the IP (or I suppose Disney now?) and then license it out to various external dev teams. Some do a great job, others don't.
Had mechanus for a few years, and only got thru like five missions. Coming from Xcom the staleness of the fights just stands out even more.