rofl, be careful ranking anything without X-Com1 on the top. You might get skinned alive ... here or in other websites.
As for me, I believe everybody has different opinions because people are just different so nobody's right or wrong. For me, the atmosphere in the new series was just not as engaging as the original.
I keep saying to people, nobody makes games with their hearts poured into the design anymore. Games like Baldur's Gate2 is like a piece of artwork. Games like Dragon Age is obviously made for money making. Even WoW is no where as perfect as older Blizzard games, because it's been designed with a different purpose. What else da ya expect?
And if you scrutinize X-Com like you scrutinize artwork, there's really not much you can complain about it. For example, look at the "countries" in X-Com2. The designers predicted the European Union years ahead of it's time! They predicted that Taiwan would never reunite with China before 2039, and it looks to be true! It's all these little bits that makes an observer (of an artwork) appreciate and indulge in the game completely. It's like reading a Crichton novel - you know it's science fiction, but damn does it feel like it's real.
And what we strive to do here? This is artwork. It's restoring lost art because the owners (2000 Mxxxn) are uncultured swine.
Yeah the reason X-Com 1 wasn't on top of my list was probably the AI, pathing of units, and so much losing soldiers. I like having one set of soldiers, which I level up, the entire game and that was really hard to do with X-Com 1 ... I don't mind some casualties, but it was soo random in X-Com 1 .., like when my soldier misses at point black range (I thought it was impossible beforehand) and friendly fire shoots other guy standing beside the alien (WTF ... I was soo sure it wasn't possible in the game engine, LOL)
You just need not to compare the atmospheres of X-Com and Ufo: AFterseries ... Afterseries was like your group being equal to aliens, and fighting them equally, resisting .... but X-Com was full of despair and fear of unknown ... you must not compare them to enjoy them both !!!
Also loved bullet time in Afterseries ... being able to watch the action but still be able to think about everything thrice before doing so and give commands.
The Baldurs Gate series was really great, like the other Infinity games (Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment) and Neverwinter Nights series, Fallout 1+2, The Fall, Earth 2150: The Moon Project (a strategy, LOL), Fallout Online: 2238 (nice MMO game, check my youtube channel for my LP of it - browse youtube for Templayer FOnline ) Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Jagged Alliance ... so many good games out there ! I'm going to LP them all !
Dragon Age 1 was rather good, but it was limited compared to BG, and the options were like Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral .... nothing else :-( , I wished for DA 2 to be less limited, but instead they limited it even more and now it sucks a**.
Anyway, I enjoy such conversation, I like to share my gourman opinion, and to read the opinions of others (if they aren't like "YOu suck, the game <insert game name here> is tha best !!")