Day One we have a few glitches related to Steam cloud storage which may prohibit continuing the campaign during a later session. Disabling the cloud and reinstalling seem to have corrected that issue without forfieting campaign progress.

Skirmish & MP mode will be reviewed more thoroughly at a later date, but the initial stages of the campaign are very much in line with the universe. A tale of betrayal, redemption and the hard fought batles in between. This is everything I have loved about the universe for over 3 decades. UI is reasonably intuitive assuming you are familiar with the tabletop or previous video game mechanics, (heat, multiple weapon systems, range, cover, speed, etc). It is easy to inadvertently use the mech's move stage, leaving you no option save to change facing, but once you suffer that a couple times you figure out how to avoid it.

The game feels right. Combat animations are well done, the soundtrack is brilliant and on par with Stellaris. If you are a BattleTech fan, you will want in on this game. I'm sure we'll have a few patches to correct some early platform anomalies, but once the game is up and running it is fun, beautiful and a much needed digital addition to the game we all know and love.


UPDATE 23Nov2018

Long overdue for an in dept update, which I will postpone until the after the DLC, (can't wait to play with the Hachetman), I did want to note that having played through the entire campaign to completion the story was impeccably done. The only defect was the necessity of specific pilot builds which has been reviewed ad nauseum. Still, I look forward to the next installment.


UPDATE 04JAN2021

As of this moment I have 665.6h on record for the game and 104 of the 120+ achievements. I have played the campaign and career mode through multiple times on various settings, including Ironman for both. I have all of the DLC and I can say, without a doubt, that this is the best digital BattleTech experience I've ever enjoyed. Yes, I miss MW4:Mercs, (MW5 is ♥♥♥♥♥, IMHO) and MWO, while fun, doesn't draw me back hour after hour.

This is not to say it is without its flaws, they are present. It still plays more like a video game than tabletop, which is to be expected. I also note that may experience tends to be subtly different than my best friend's. We commiserate on occasion how different his play-throughs are from mine, consistently. Not sure what that it all about. Also, the latest mech designs move and look more humanoid than mechanoid, which I find somewhat puzzling.

The story, the visual design, the sound effects, the soundtrack, everything is top of the food chain and I am sad that what we have is all we will get. For now. Who knows, maybe a Clan Invasion version will be on the horizon some day.

Worth every penny and every hour I have invested.

This will be brief as I have not played the game MP and I have not, depite all teh time I have owned it, completed the SP campaign. I was stuck on one mission for the longest time, played other games and forgot about this.

What I will say is that is is pretty faithful to the tabletop in terms of game mechanics. For that reason alone, I would recommend this game if it was on a Steam Sale and you were a fan of the real game.

Note: I backed this game via Kickstarter back in 2013 and for that I have no remorse.

After about 12h of gameplay I can say this is the most unforgiving game, which makes it about as faithful to the tabletop version as it can be. The only thing better about playing this game is that all the statistical chances are not based on 16% intervals, (curse you D6).

My first warband, Possessed, started poorly and took 5 games in before we won a first match. I had to buy a 2nd Leader for match #2 as my initial Leader was taken out in his first outing and required 4 days to recover. My 2nd hero got amnesia on hist first outing so despite earnign 4XP for the match, lost 5XP to amnesia. Like I said, this is pretty faithful to the tabletop which seems every bit as brutal. At present, I have lost mroe than I have won and I have had twice as many of my troops taken down in matches than I had delivered in return.

That said, I find the brual pace of the game and the challenge of not being wiped out invigorating. It is a very frustrating game to play, but I've learned a few tricks along the way which should make starting a 2nd warband easier. If you want a serious challenge in a single player game, this may be what you're looking for. If, however, you are easily frustrated by what appears to be the computer cheating on you, (and it certainly feels like that sometimes), then this is probably not the game for you.

In future, I hope they add additional DLC for warbands like the Dwarfs & Amazons, who are two of the warbands I have for tabletop.

As an avid fan of the original XCOM, I was genuinely excited when the game got a reboot, (not the least of which was simply being able to play my beloved franchise on a modern machine without having to tweak the hell out of the old DOS version to slow it down). I plugged my way through it multiple times and then again with the alternate universe in Enemy Within. I preparing to try it yet again wiht The Long War mod. Sure, the game has some foibles, but it it an excellent tactical squad game and had plenty of replayability in both SP and MP. Hell, with 200+h in, I still have 9 achievments to grab out of the 85 total.

I cannot recommend this game enough if you loved the old franchise or just enjoy tactical squad gameplay.