MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries

It is mechwarrior singleplayer game, kudos for that. It looks decently, albeit do not expect your jaw to drop on the floor - however expect your PC to hit maximum temperature for no obvious reason (recommend to play this during cold season). Outside of campaign mission which are locked behind reputation wall it is mindbogingly repetitive. Outside campaign missions it does not utilise any story, no plot, no scheming amongs houses. That is for campaign. I have not tested it, but the map feels scripted (static), therefore you constantly winning in a sector won't solve the conflict there and close the sector (which can be useful when you return to lick your wounds and refill C-Bills). Campaign + DLC campaigns move the plot and are huge refresh. So far, so good, relatively. I find the repair/purchase/loot mechanic quite stupid. It would be good, if there would be a more expensive delivery service. Hunting new PPC you lost is fun for first time, for 100th time, wasting time and seeing dropship animation again and again, only to find out this sector sells pristine machine gunes and crapy lazors, but no PPC - not fun. I would keep the mechanic present, but I would add "space DHL" - where you order part for 2-3x bigger price and get it delivered within a week (to not abuse it during multimission scenarios). If you are into lore, you are going to suffer, seeing single Leopard carrying 16 ready-for.next-mission assault mechs without any issue, yet you can have only single lance. And now the worst - I would be willing to work/mod around above mentioned, but the AI. The AI is so bad... It would be bad AI in 90s - MW4 had better AI, ways better. Teammates are useless, enemy is unbalanced, because (especialy during destruction missions) 6 mechs focus on one of yours who is busy shooting already destroyed building - and wipe it within seconds and move on to next target. BAD, TERRIBLE AI. Why 3 stars then? Well, its singleplayer mechshow with lazors, PPCs, ACs, LRMs...

As someone who grew up with the games both table top and video game, I think this is finally in the right direction. The base game is lack luster but with all the DLC's it comes to life. Althought you can't attatch 16 AC 20's and have unlimited ammo, at least without mods, i think some of the limitations of weapons makes the game a little more realistic. Granted, were talking about walking tanks, in that is not realistic, so its a 'realisim where applicable'. You can Co-Op the game and it really takes off from there. The main mission is lack luster, but some of the side missions have a better story then the main mission. Also, the main story arc dosen't make much sense because you're getting revenge for your dad's murder... and there technicly isn't murder in war... idk. Over all if you want guns, explosions, metal music, and stomping robots give it a spin.

Playing the unmodded version of MW5 is repetitive & boring. Using mods makes it somehwat engaging & fun. Be sure to disable updates after modding as any update breaks all mods.

I grew up playing MW2,3,and 4 in the 90's and 2000's. This game is a wonderful continuance of that genre. Listen, if you want hard core 'Mech combat mixed with the grunge work of handling a "small" business, this is epic! I can't recommend this game enough for anyone. As a side note, I run it on Linux through Bottles/WINE-GE and it runs great!

Good without mods (but challenging for newbies), but absolutely the Greatest entry to Battletech with mods like YAML, allowing unparallel customization of mechs and lance. There is a flood of critical reviews that don't make sense (black PR?), no idea why it is 3.8 / 5. I am 100 hours in, completed campaign and doing career mode. I still have seen probably somewhere around 1/3 of all content. On sale - must have if you are a fan of Battletech.