Platform: PC (Windows XP was out and it worked on that when I played it)

Genre: Strategy, most likely turn based, slight chance it might have been real time

Estimated year of release: I got the game from a Half-Price books around 2006 or 2007 in one of those bulky boxes, but the game looked like something from the early 2000s, definitely post DOS though.

Graphics/art style: Isometric, had fog of war mechanics, a very drab color palette. I remember the enemy units were always brown and your units were always cyan. There were a lot of urban maps and I remember the game featured mostly mechanical units with an alien aesthetic (Mechs, tanks, UFOs, etc.). There could be organic characters like humans or aliens, but I do not recall any. I believe environmental explosives like gas filled trucks were also a thing, much like in XCOM. The style was not cartoon-y at all and was attempting to look halfway realistic. The units almost reminded me of pixelated board game pieces since they were always one color corresponding to your side.

Notable Characters: No notable playable characters outside of unit types. I distinctly remember a flying saucer unit, a trash can like robot with two treads on each side and Mech suit looking unit. Again, all the units in the game were largely one color, just swapped to represent bad guys (brown) versus you (cyan).

Notable Gameplay Mechnics: It was most certainly turn based but my memory might be betraying me, it played very similarly to XCOM, but most of your units were just faceless robots, machines or soldiers, no unique named characters with individual progression. There was a Fog of war mechanic. I remember that the game always ran in windowed mode whenever I played it so it could be minimized super easily. The map was Isometric. It was most certainly a single player only game and (I think) had a stage editor. It is possible there might have been a "hot seat" multiplayer mode like in Worms games, but I had no friends to find out if this was a thing ;_;

I do not believe the game could support more than 2 players, one being AI controlled and the other being player controlled, hence the two colors for the sides that stuck in my mind.

Other details: Again, I know this sounds like textbook XCOM from the description but I checked snapshots and game-play from all the old XCOM games, and none of them rang a bell so I am almost certain it was not an XCOM game. I'll see if I can't find those boxed games, but it is likely they got thrown out long ago.