Cool! Thanks again for the post.
It should work when the sniper has the enemy flanked. If the shot UI says "Cover 0" then it should be a crit. I noticed the "Critical" message isn't showing up and have that one logged but I'll log that the skill might not be working also and check it out.
Having your save file might be good to help track down that character disappearing bug but I'll try reproducing it
Save data files will start with "DOE_SaveData" and generally reside in folder:
OSX: ~/Library/Application Support/HOF Studios/Depth of Extinction/
Windows: %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Packages\Depth of Extinction\LocalState\
Linux: {home}/unity3d/HOF Studios/Depth of Extinction/
I balanced all the enemies (and weapons) down (weaker) a few builds ago because the feedback I received was that the game was too hard. I'll take a look at the data soon as we'll be doing another balance pass. It's good anecdotally to hear that you thought it should ramp up more quickly in Zone 2. It's a tough balancing act because when you hit the wall the team generally gets wiped and I wanted to reduce that initial friction for sure.