Egregoros

@collappsar >where a game developer makes a game and realises it's too easy, and then plays with math in the game engine to add difficulty that isn't fun.
what mechanics are you thinking of specifically for XCOM? A lot of people have said the RNG, which I find especially interesting because they tried to tune that one to be "more fair" instead of "harder", so that would absolutely match what you describe (lack of mechanical elegance)