I say play it. It’s a great game despite all the issues.
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IMHO you should wait. If you play it now you will enjoy for sure, but game is not finished and some stuff will ruin your experience so badly. There are many bugs and menu bad ui and ux errors. Developers likely had a deadline and didn’t menage to finish it properly. There is lot of logic flaws. In late game managing few aircraft on geomap becomes a burden because of bad ui.
Also at some moment it will became too hard. You will be forced to quit and play it again with more experience. You have to know game mechanics very good to be able to win. This game doesn’t forgive errors of inexperienced players.
That is for me maybe the worst aspect of the game, because I can’t enjoy the storyline in one play. When I start from the beginning game is just not that interesting.
That’s all that matters. You don’t know what happens tomorrow. The galactic birkeland current could spike and destroy all life in the milky way.
Do It.
If that spike is like difficulty spike in PP that would be bad 
I would play it now, honestly, but be prepared to get frustrated and quit/restart often as it is admittedly an unbalanced mess right now. There are a handful of severe bugs as well, the most notorious of which will corrupt your save files or hang your game mid-battle, as well as plenty of smaller issues that seem to affect fewer people. Lots of patches to come, I hope. You may have seen the term ‘Backer Build 6’ flying around which I’m inclined to agree with in the current state.
That being said, it’s ridiculously fun when it’s not bending you over a barrel or trying to break your files (though I find it harder than XCOM 2, but if they reckon they’ve finished balancing PP yet I’ll eat all of my undies so this could change in time) and frankly I love it (which is why I’m being kinda hard on Snapshot here); a Lovecraftian style XCOM-like is literally tailor made for my nerd ass.
TLDR: Play now, but prepare for likely feelings of disappointment.
P.S. Snapshot, if you’re reading this; where the Bo Diddly are my Sphinx-flavoured African Pandorans? 
I’d wait - I’m hoping for a better balanced/less buggy game after a patch or two. - In the meantime there’s plenty of other games to play.
Advice seems like it’s 50/50 either way, I bet you thought that you’d get a clear answer one way or the other
Thanks more is always good to take, Mutant Year Zero that I already bought look a big one if you don’t bother on a less long campaign.
For Commandos isn’t it a real time series? I won’t deny the tactical value but really it’s a very different topic.
Yeah Xenonauts 2, will wait it is out of Early Access, I never entered in a X1 campaign much long, but it’s still in reserve for a next attempt and I have good hopes for X2, crossing fingers the dev will make again an effort of Mac (and Linux) support through Wine.
Among those I didn’t played that looks very worthy out of your list, and that I quoted:
More on indie A to mainstream AAA side:
- Silent Storm (gold includes the extension), a classic, and a reference for shooter combats, not for campaign in my opinion, gave up because of instability with Wine, need try again with Win10 this time.
- King’s Bounty Legend, now a classic, for me one of the deepest tactical game I played, but it’s combats on a board, that’s something else.
- Disgaea series, gave up on puzzles/tricks before combats, lol.
- Mordheim: City of the Damned, I have it already, not played, dunno if its very good fame is coming from PvP or also for Single Player.
- Banner Saga Series, combats are more on the chess board approach, I consider this a totally different matter.
- Ash of Gods, similar than Banner Saga, suffered from excess of incpiration from only one series, but when you dig pretty different on many aspect. Different combats but also on chess board approach.
- Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest, need play it, seems have a high tactical value, but eventually too much tuned so can feel a bit like puzzles to some players.
More in indie to polished indie side:
- Invisible Inc, already a classic already influencing the industry, but it’s more stealth, and quick short campaigns.
- Overland, polished indie side, very bizarre, in fact started it but stopped before beat the game once, it’s rough to master a so uncommon system. I need decipher better the part of RNG when you master it before to throw a personal opinion.
- VoidSpire Tactics, supposed to be influenced by Final Fantasy Tactics, and seems very worthy. But a caution need apply, most of its fame seems come from a specialized forum from where come the dev. I have it already just need find time to play it on Windows.
- Chroma Squad, I had some difficulties to enter in movies as combats and special actions to do, need play more.
- Knights of the Chalice, based on Open Source version of Dungeon & Dragon IP, not played yet.
- Low Magic Age, very long Early Access phase, typical project that if achieved not many project will be able compete with on many aspect, 5+ years of maturation and players testing and ambitions not rejected…
- Tactics V: “Obsidian Brigade”, need play, one more FFT inspired, caution you’ll need get over a borderline awful UI, at least with obsolete UI a bit heavy and slow to use (menu and submenu) everywhere.
Lol, sorry, I like make lists. 
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Thank you for the many comments and suggestions. I have decided to wait. In the meantime, I have gone back to Expeditions Conquistador, a game that I bought a long time ago and never really tried. So far, the turn-based tactical combat seems like a lot of fun, as does the strategy-level/RPG gameplay. Hope that the wait for Phoenix Point won’t be too long, though.
Good value for Expeditions Conquistador, there are players more enthusiast for it than me, but I agree it’s solid good combats and team management is fun.
The 2 seems better, but for now skipped from not have a Mac version, will pick it on a sale.
Ah another one i’d forgotten about! While it was great, i found i like the Expeditions Vikings much more and actually couldn’t get back into Conquistador after playing Vikings. They added a lot of new stuff into that game.
I wish JG would think about a making a remake of Laser squad. Or, go further and actually make it.
I would wait and hopefully have your patience rewarded with a much better experience (I've tried.. I really have but now its time to ask for a refund)
If you weren’t that pleased with XCOM 2, then in its current stage PP may be an even more frustrating experience. I also found XCOM 2 very challenging at first, but after several attempts I learned enough tricks and tactics to make the game enjoyable. Having said that, I am getting extremely frustrated with PP by the huge difficulty SPIKE. I understand the idea of making in more challenging if one does well, but it’s more like punishment for doing well. Battles are becoming impossible to survive (and I am playing on easy level). I also find the following issues very frustrating:
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Soldiers losing the amor/weapsons for their class and receiving equipment they can’t use. I am having this happen all too often and losing hours of play in order to fall back to an early enough save to prevent it from recurring.
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Defending the base missions are really messed up (IMHO). While you get early warning that it is coming, your soldiers are not prepared. Several of them will be hanging out in the area where they “know” the enemy will spawn and they can’t move into safety before the battle starts. While the rest of them are off in some corner far from the area of action (playing cards or perhaps watching porn). It can take 2-3 turns to get them even close the where they can be useful. More often than not my Scarab is parked in an area where it can’t be brought into play.
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Ambushes have become insane with the difficulty spike. They might be manageable if one new in advance where the extraction point will be. I find it odd that my ground forces are not in communication with the ship to prearrange an extraction point. This makes it impossible to survive and escape (even in a Scarab).
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It seems that almost all of the calls for haven defense are too far away to reach before they are destroyed. Thus making it extremely difficult to build up good points with the factions.
However, there are some “good” things about the game. So I have persevered to about mid-way though the campaign. But my spirits are now so dampened by the above, I think I am ready to shelve the game until some of the more egregious problems are solved.
Don’t be fooled by the ‘not proficient’ sign. Soldiers can still fire guns, even if they’re not proficient with them - it just means they have a wider targeting reticle, is all.
That is not the real issue, it’s losing the special weapons and armor. Especially early on when one is not able to manufacture that lost weapons/armor.What good is a sniper class when it receives a shotgun and no longer has access to the quality sniper rifle now lost?
This is even worse when a specialist is basically downgraded to a grunt. A tech that lost all its gear and armor. Same goes for a heavy who loses mounted weapon and armor. Then there is the Priest that loses armor/mutations and basically is turned into an a grunt.
It’s a pure bug and needs to be fixed.
OK, are you talking about the equipment disappearing from the Squad screen? That hasn’t happened to me since I reported it in BB5, so I thought it had been fixed.
Yes, it may have gotten reintroduced with the latest patch.
Happened to me as well: somehow equippment is never enough for my soldiers even tohugh playing in medium difficulty they coem with full sets + some are additionally produced
I say wait, as the balance update is hopefully going to make a huge difference, and should bring the game in line with the difficulty of similar XCOM-y games. And that’s exactly what I’m betting the majority of people were after.
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This is happening 80+% of the time. While the Scarab can easily destroy a thick concrete wall and other barriers in the base, it can’t deal with measly barrels and crates. Thus it is blocked out of play the majority of the time.