2K Games has released a developer diary that hopes to answer that simplest of questions for gamers the world over. What is XCOM? First and foremost, it's an origin story, in which you play as a member of the titular alien investigation agency, as small town suburban America comes under the influence of a massive, cancerous alien invasion.

With the streets plagued and overrun with monolithic crystalline structures, as the aliens begin to terraform Earth, it'll be up to the XCOM agency to prevent the infecting invasion from spiralling out of control, using research based upon alien technology and other resources to succeed.

Check out the developer diary to learn more about XCOM, and if you're still not satisfied, you can get more details out of our in-depth XCOM E3 2011 preview. XCOM is out on March 6th, 2012 in North America and March 9th, 2012 in Europe.