XCOM: you're pure evil.
As of this writing, I've been avoiding playng XCOM: Enemy Unknown for a month in spite of how well I've been doing. My soldiers have advanced armor and weapons making them well equipped to face the alien threat. Yet, I'm terrified of going back. Even more so than the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. And yet, the game isn't even a horror game, at least in the traditional since. Humanity suffers some gut-wrenching atrocities at the hands of the game's extraterrestrial invaders, but that's not what makes the game so horrific. It's the legitimate sense of dread the game fosters as things progress.
The game is all about escalation on a grand scale. Aliens come and terrorize the populace. Earth responds with clandestine task force XCOM. Aliens respond in kind with bigger baddies. XCOM's troops get bigger and badder. And so on.
It took me a couple of playthroughs to fully realize that formula. After suffering a total squad wipe during a key mission, I knew I had to reexamine my strategy, or rather, lack thereof. Sure, I built up my base and researched, but I didn't research enough technologies at a fast enough pace. Earth was surely doomed. So, like any self-respecting game player, I quit and deleted my save. I couldn't bear to watch the end. It's hard enough watching soldiers die.
For the blissfully ignorant, when your soldiers fall on the field of battle in XCOM, they die for good. Your heavy weapons specialist who survived seven sorties and achieved the rank of major might have plenty of kills under his belt, but if he gets flanked, it'll end poorly for him. "Permadeath" isn't even the game's worst cruelty. Your soldiers all have names. If they survive long enough, they'll get nicknames too. Camaraderie is simulated in the most subtle of ways and quickly exploited when the game's base provides you with a soldiers' memorial.
It's strange. The game allows for little room for the soldiers to show much personality. And yet, just by giving them names and nicknames, it makes them seem more human. XCOM is not a forgiving game. It will not hold your hand, and if you try to reach your hand out to it, it'll likely just bite it clean off. It's a game that sheds any associations of "joy" with the word "game," and I can't help but respect the hell out of the game for it. But it's respect in the same way that you respect a beast or a dictator. Respect out of fear because you never know when tragedy will befall you, but you know well enough that it's coming. Never a matter of if. Always when.
