The DLC was marketed as progressing the timeline to 3057, but the last news blurb is from 3052; Certain pilot academies will open after that, but clantech remains segregated to Clan missions and never filters into the Great House militaries gameplay-wise, outside of rare market deals and random drops from arena prestige ranks. The storyline is an enjoyably tough romp through clan space from the first days of the invasion, with an abrupt 'Halo 2'-style cliffhanger ending. An ironic twist of fate makes you pair up more with friendly lances throughout this DLC than when you're attached directly to Great House militaries in previous ones. The vast majority of the soundtrack absolutely rips, with 'The War Machine' being one of the best tracks in the game; Legion of the Brave sounds like a demo take they left in, but it's still better than 'Master of War'. The new mechs and weapons add some welcome build variety for your own stable, but the implementation is somewhat rough around the edges; Damaged arms that float, broken walk cycles, clantech weapons that look visually indistinct from their inner-sphere counterparts, weapon sound effects that sound oddly quiet on certain mechs, weapons that don't work like they should in certain omni slots, etc. The upside is that there's so much they added that despite the few rough edges, you'll have hours and hours of new toys that actually work to play with. The new Biomes are effectively recolors, but they still add a welcome amount of visual variety while running just as well as the old ones. The new pilot progression system adds some welcome depth to your mechwarriors, but it's still easier to 'trade out' a worse mechjock for a better one on the market than it is to spend the tens of millions of C-bills necessary to train up a bad one; You'll spend more on tuition than on some assault mechs. TL;DR - If you like the base game this DLC is a must-buy, but if you don't then it still won't change your mind.
I played the first game with all it's DLC, moment-to-moment gameplay is just as good but everything outside of that feels somewhat shallow. For example, there's a superficial 'economy' system where you buy things in one system and sell them in another, but unlike an ACTUAL economy system supply/demand doesn't really fluctuate at all as you do business so there isn't a reason to change up who you buy/sell to. System nodes each have a checklist of busywork to fill out, after you do that there's no reason to go back to them. They'll repopulate but the combat encounters don't significantly change outside of general system level-ups as you level-up yourself. You don't get jumped by the Okkar anymore either, so the tension and urgency from the first game is pretty much gone. The radiant quest system is a welcome addition, but questgivers are restricted to three systems so you have to "make your own fun", so to speak, in half the systems after you fill the node checkboxes in them. There are NPC stations in each of the systems too that'd make sense to have quest boards, why they didn't just do that I have no idea. The biggest systems are the first two, and the new systems gradually get smaller as you progress through the game. They all have their own gimmicks and enemy factions, save one which feels like an afterthought. There's an entire system listed on the map you can't even explore, I think it was a bad idea to leave it on the map since it leaves a feeling of unfinished business after completing the game. The story starts out nice and pulpy, but as actually interesting characters leave your 'party' it gets campier and campier until it culminates in a 'power of friendship!'-style cornball climax that I didn't HATE, but was a far cry from the first subplot. All the interesting flawed characters get replaced by sappy flawless do-gooders, it feels like. TL;DR - It's a fine arcadey space shooter and feels worth the price, but it loses a lot of the tone and atmosphere.
Tack on another star after they iron out the bugs in a few months; In particular, on the last map where your lance forgets how to walk through a door and get focused down one-by-one unless you micromanage their movement to the millimeter, and enemies with jumpjets flying around getting stuck in the geometry and you not being able to find them (which was FIXED FOR YEARS in older game modes with periodic radar pings). If you're still interested in the DLC, I strongly suggest waiting in the shielded area at the start of Free-for-All matches in order for the enemies to start shooting each other, otherwise you're gonna take a few cheap shots by the entire map before they 'remember' they're fighting each other. Also, Alpha Strikes will draw aggro from the entire map so only do it when you've got some cover or you're fast and on the move. Now as for the actual review: The story's fine. The voice acting is mostly alright to good save for Cotton, whose every joke has to do with him soiling himself; I largely blame the writer for that. It acts as a sort-of backstory for MW4 Merc's Solaris arena announcer. The music's pretty good (again), save for one song (again), but the worst one among this batch still isn't remotely as bad as Master of War. I'm not sure how many of the "new" arena maps are lifted from Mechwarrior Online, but other than being somewhat buggy they look pretty cool. In particular, the factory map full of destructibles is hard to navigate for the AI, I find. There are a lot of 'remixes' of older mech chassis added with this DLC, along with a nice-looking 65-ton repurposed powerloader that's appears to be a reused destructible environment model. The stars of this DLC, however, are the new weapons; In particular the PPC-X, which IMO is easily the meatiest-sounding, most satisfying weapon to shoot in-game. The new rapid-fire autocannons are fun, but weaker than the regular variants per-shot so their usefulness is limited. etc. TL;DR - Wait a month or two.
I never played this game without the HOTIS DLC; It felt like a complete game with it, and worth what I paid. I would not buy the standard edition by itself unless it was heavily discounted. My only previous Mechwarrior game was the free MekTek repack of Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries. The gameplay is similar, It improved in some ways but declined in others; General graphics are better, better weapon balance, but it misses basic features like your mech physically recoiling after big hits or straight up knocking mechs over with alpha strikes, and you were able to drop with two lances in MW4M instead of just one. There are a lot more hand-crafted missions available in MW5M then there were in MW4M, but in general the scenarios are less interesting or complex. The vanilla game very much likes to just throw wave after wave of enemies at you to wear you down, however using pre-mission intel to decide on your Lance composition will definitely make a difference. Friendly AI ranges from 'borderline special needs' to 'competent enough', but most of the time you can't just leave them alone to do their thing. Lance orders exist for a reason in this game. Sound FX are a sidegrade but the Soundtrack itself is alright with about as many bangers as MW4M had. The dialogue from characters is generally acceptable but there are times when you can tell some of it was just placeholder dialogue they left in. MW5M's Mech designs were borrowed from Piranha's 'Mechwarrior Online', a competitive twitch shooter; It shows because some of designs of the mechs that were in MW4M look like they were butchered in order provide a 'fair' side profile for a competitive shooter. The Zeus specifically, which is now built like one of the card people from 'Alice in Wonderland', comes to mind. There are other victims, like the Battlemaster, but they're not as bad. TL;DR - Try Mechwarrior 4 Mercs out first since it's abandonware; If you like the combat, you will probably like this game. Mods make it better.
The questline is set after the events of the main story, and the difficulty feels appropriate. I found the missions to be lacking compared to the other DLC questlines; Many times I had to try the mission to figure out which mechs would suit it, something I hadn't had a problem with previously since the DLC mission director usually suggested the general tools you needed to run them. The DLC missions also have trouble telling you whether you're capable of extracting right after objective completion or if you need to kill everything first. One particular mission supposedly tasks you with defending dropships as they take off in sequence, but in reality is little more than window dressing for the usual waves of enemy lances since they don't bother actually attacking the dropships; However, most missions with unique conditions actually work. Like the Rasalhague DLC, you're attached to a great house military but it usually doesn't feel like it. The missions in which it does, are fun, but most of the time you're fighting by yourself. One mission tasks you with taking an entire city by yourself, something you had an extra lance for help with in the Kestrel Lancers DLC. The pilots you supposed to be fighting against might be LCAF/AFFS in the lore but their livery and dialogue suggest they come from all over the inner sphere, including the Draconis Combine (Which during the questline you are currently allied with), which I assume is a bug? Like the Rasalhague DLC, one of the new music tracks is a stinker but the others are good. They're not released as of me writing this so I don't know their names. The six 'Otomo' mech variants are all hero mechs, most of which are gifted to you during the DLC and all of which have unique "greebles" added on to them. They're pretty useful. The longbow is an 85 ton missle boat, and plays like the rest of the missile boats but with more armor. TL;DR the new mechs are good, missions are a hot mess, I'd wait for a discount.
TL;DR - It's OK, the price seems appropriate, but I think it could've spent another month getting polished because there are more than a few rough edges. I enjoyed the questline, but you don't get the feel of being glued to a great house military as much as Kestrel Lancers did; I don't think you ever get more than two mechs and a few vehicle's worth of support, and you spend a significant amount of the questline with just your lance. Some missions stood out, some were mediocre. What issues I had with it seemed to more because of the nature of the late game blending together into different flavors of assault mech slugfest, and that you reach the 400 ton limit halfway through the questline so there's not much lance variation. So far I've only got one version of the Crusader, the CRD-3R, which feels like a slightly lighter Archer, but I also like the design a bit more than the archer so w/e. I'm not sure why I'm only encountering that variant specifically but maybe the others will add something more unique. The merc rival system is interesting, but after encountering three companies they don't seem to have individual personalities. The random battles add a bit of flavor to the missions, I guess. The way vanilla reputation gain works feels like you're being punished for collecting your merc badges. The new gamemode is fun and might be the only reason to keep a lance of light/medium mechs on hand in late game. The pay bonuses from being sneaky aren't a whole lot, though. It actually feels unique despite that. The soundtrack "Empire of the tyrants" is good, "Dethroned" is OK; "Master of War" made me want to mute my game it's so bad. I'm serious. The first two minutes and twelve seconds are the worst music in the entire game. There are other rough spots, like your lance AI getting stuck on specific terrain pieces and operator pictures of dudes sounding like girls. I had to restart once b/c a tank went under the map. Nothing gamebreaking.
This update greatly fleshes out the melee combat, making it feel like less of a gimmick and more of an actual playstyle. Melee doesn't just accentuate the gunplay anymore; However, you need a mech variant specifically designed for it in order to get the most out of the system. I found that those don't show up in the story mode until the Hatchetman quest drops (naturally), and by then the mech in question is largely irrelevant unless you're ranking up really slowly, so if you want to run a campaign with lots of melee-oriented mechs in all ranks you're better off using a career mode that starts at a later date instead of story mode. The Hatchetman's 5-mission quest is OK; It's not a mini Kestrel Lancers campaign, it's not even really a HOTS side-mission since there's no one talking except Ryana. If you're doing the story mode, the level your company'll be at by the time the mission drops means you'll probably steamroll the entire thing. The three (more like two and one-half) new biomes look good; Scrapyard and Hoodoo desert look visually distinct and the music tracks for both are solid. Rubellite is just Tourmaline with some red rocks in it, but it's not visually offensive. The final 'action' soundtrack, Spearhead, sounds half-finished, complementing the Rubellite biome in a bizarre way despite not playing there. The Stormsurge skin looks nice but the color combinations for it are somewhat limited since you can't change the blue hue of the animation in question. The free updates are welcome, you don't have to mod in overtonnage drops now and your mech getting surpise headshotted isn't the end of the mission. The visual updates to menus are nice and it's easier to read where you stand with factions. On top of all that, the dev team went out of their way to redo two out of three of the Kestrel Lancers cutscenes, IMO greatly improving them. TL;DR - price point feels appropriate, if you don't like the base game this won't change your mind.
As of writing this review there are a number of audio, graphical and input-related bugs that, while not game breaking, reduce the experience somewhat. The main storyline is great, but short. The voiceacting is passable to good, however the player character doesn't talk at all throughout which I found strange. The new biomes for the most part are interesting to play in, especially the megacity despite apparently being made of mostly recycled assets and not being usable with all gamemodes like the others. They also included new soundtracks specific to each new biome which are all pretty good; However they seem to play 90% of the time you're in the biome, so despite how good they are I can see it getting a little old. They're also not included in the downloadable extras, which is unfortunate. The new side missions were enjoyable, however as a whole I found them to be not quite as good as the HOTIS DLC missions. There are some new gamemodes, which at face value appear to be just the old game modes but with a slight twist. There are also more base mech variants, but no new chassis and from what I can tell there are also no new hero mechs this time. There's also a new plotline-relevant paint pattern, but it doesn't work on all mechs as of writing this; However, the mechs it doesn't work on turn into resin figures which I thought was funny. The free Melee update provides most mechs with close-range options that increase build variety, and properly fleshes out some mechs I previously considered boring to use. Pummeling mechs is addicting, but you'll wreck your own mech if you're not careful since your AI ally's stray shots tend to hit you and the mechs you melee also tend to hit back. All in all, what's there is good, and considering the HOTIS DLC released just under four months before this came out I'm surprised it's as good as it is; However, the main story's short, there's not as much side content and the side content isn't quite as good. It's a stretch at 20$.
