i have already mentioned about 7.62 and other russian made JA2 followers.
russian mirror isn't correct description. its just one of the series of russian's attempt to mimic JA2.
7.62 was best shot for them and good one for sure, but that's it.
all of them are in 3D environment and has its own charm from it, but the pacing and combat wise, like other 3-dimensionized sequel/ripp-off games would have fallen into problematic state inevitably, in the shade of original's long stretched shadow and never matched.
clunky 3D display system cause just hardship to grasp whats going on at first glance, it makes player feel everything more bland, distant and less vivid or even narrower than 2D once he noticed its kinda series of collection of inorganic objects.
as a result, it becomes just pointlessly bulky, slow and lackluster for the rest of the play.
player who tried to do same general things with JA2, should see less polished state all in all, or too much airs to put on.
i had played 7.62 vanilla state and with Blue Sun mod several times when the game was still hot, but after-impression was too little to remember. its just so-so or rather unpleasant cumbersome experience after all and could have never kept interest as JA2. so that almost no memory left now but soon remembered the cause written in above.
and if my memory was correct, Hardlife Mod adds so called "realistic" thingy to make the game more harder. its more stray than colorful.
so, since Depth of Extinction is top-down view 2D tactical game with retro perspective approach, i thought its best to remark JA2 as ancestor and really good example of this kind which still holds up and shine.
similar scale, similar sized squad management, and so on. expression of terrains, and the focus should be within the same scope of JA2 as i said before.
its a world of gaming where is irrelevant to hick second handed unnatural 3D poser.
and one more important things. after success of new X-com, good pacing of turn based game could have convinced new, younger audience. it also succeeded in threading the line of the genre to the future.
technically, there was no reason for new X-Com had to be 3D. see how new X-Com has been ridiculously simplified to make it's game experience much poorer if compared to original. its badly suffer from short living linear progression so that keeps me away from it after several through since there is no replay value. but at the same time, it's simplified shape suggests ideal ways such as:
1. detailed info is shown on demand and only if necessary. since every player knows keeping already-knowing-things on screen is not only useless but just annoying.
2. devs know well how the player will become concentrate on only important things to keep playing. thus, less informative at once and simple interaction to work on.
3. trying to be simple leads to intuitive flow of continual play and succeeded in softening the learning curve of its innate complexity of this kind for newbies.
4. all of these things are done with abstraction from masterpiece of the past by the persons who know real thing and the taste. and its well executed and standout like popular standard music with clear, catchy melody line.
i feel devs of Depth of Extinction are concerning for this point of view. easy to start but deep at the core, intuitive and addictive. all is contributing to good pacing.
additionally, good integration of random elements to strengthen replayability which was lack in new X-Com.