TL;DR--I've nominated this game for the "Haunts my Dreams" award, since whenever it crosses my mind a wave of regret and flashbacks flows through me.

Pros:

Steampunk mecha and tanks with death rays and shields, and extremely apropos British flavor naturally--tea is considered a critical war supply
Clever story background explaining why you're stomping around in a steam-powered bipedal engine of destruction
Simple to learn yet hard to master use of "match 3+" for effective action during each combat turn

Neutral:

Most revealing parts of the clever story can be largely missed if a relatively small number of the missions either don't get randomly generated or simply are not chosen
No "save scumming" with this roguelike, you get killed and that's it for you, start a new campaign buddy

Cons:

Roguelike random generation of missions, enemies, and rewards compounded by random generation of field for "match 3+" mechanic largely determines whether you will win or lose even if your skill and tactics are top notch
Random enemies are often extremely more powerfully equipped than you can possibly be from the very beginning of the game, even during supposedly easy missions


The devs got all my money for this game because a dear friend of mine who lives some distance away had just started playing it and was very enthusiastic. Because the description sounded interesting, I bought the whole package including the DLC as it wasn't too expensive and I wanted something the two of us could talk shop about when we visited next.

I nearly immediately regretted this decision.

Not sure whether to take my opinion seriously? If you check my profile you will see I have slammed in many many hours, and have all the achievements [which means all the global unlocks]. But that is solely because I am an extraordinarily stubborn completionist. I've gotten to the end of the campaign five times, out of which I pulled 3 victories. So I consider myself approximately as competent at the game as it is reasonable to expect a player can become. And I still have gotten my ass kicked before the second campaign mission begins. NOT JOKING--the run I got the "kill yourself by overheating" achievement was during that first mission, and NOT on purpose--the board just wouldn't drop me the matches I needed to actually perform any useful actions and I ran out of coolant just before trying to shield myself to avoid getting killed by the enemy's attack their next turn...

Upgrades for your pilot, mecha special attacks, and weapon/drive/shield slots are also entirely randomly generated each time you level, and far too often are "choose one of 3 things that all suck and are a waste of your time". Devs, since so much of this game is random, when someone plays it enough to get global unlocks of useful upgrades, why don't you just let them pick when they would like to get those? Or run a skill tree or something? I mean, a little balance might help the player deal with the "four days until the final boss, fight a couple of light scouts that turn out to have Mark V* equipment in all slots and 2000 health" nonsense without throwing their mouse at the screen.

*All equipment runs from Mark I to Mark V, and increases both in damage resistance and effectiveness substantially with every step. It is possible, but extremely difficult, to have all Mark V gear for the final boss fight. A well upgraded player will have 1100-1200 health at the final boss.

I also took Katherine Chapman nearly every playthrough after the first, a DLC pilot whose special ability increases the number of rare blueprint drops that happen. One of my five "all the way" trips with her, not ONE. SINGLE. RARE. happened the entire campaign; I lost that one because I just didn't have enough scrap to repair my hull AND buy parts to upgrade so I could actually fight effectively.

Not spoilering this because everyone needs to know--you NEVER have enough scrap to repair your hull AND buy parts to upgrade so you can actually fight effectively. A constant sense of desperation and doom will hover over you most playthroughs unless you have an unlikely string of lucky reward drops for winning missions and leveling, destroying any enjoyment you might have otherwise experienced. And playing a game should involve some enjoyment; the tooltips basically are the devs shrugging and saying, "Oh well, if you lose just keep playing, eventually the global unlock bonuses will help you." Translation: because you enjoy ramming your face into this brick wall so much, keep doing it, and sooner or later your face will get tough enough that you can make a crack in it...

Also, protip: "Survival" missions are a trap. Their only purpose is to make you waste all your accumulated and desperately hoarded scrap to repair yourself afterwards.

The money isn't the issue here; save your mental health and play something else, almost ANYTHING else. Devs, seriously, if you can't deal with the game theory required to fix the awful balance issues, just rename this game or at least change the description to make it clear it is for masochists only, normal gamers need to have a hint to avoid the soul-destroying experience you have created.

Verdict: HELL no.