Get the DLC. Get the mods. Loose yourself.

MechWarrior 5 gets a recommendation mostly on the merit of it being a decent game in a somewhat barren genre. It is not stellar by any means as it is somewhat let down by mediocre mech customization(at least in a base game without mods and DLC), very repetitive missions, incredibly bland protagonist taken straight from spunkgargleweewee slop, rather basic story and so on. It is, however, still a reasonably enjoyable mech sim game set in BattleTech universe and fans of said setting are anything but spoiled by choice.

Additionally out of the box MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries has a scuffed image with heavy TAA blur (With TAA enabled) or very heavy dithering mesh-like effect (with TAA disabled), albeit these issues are resolved with relative ease using online guides only requiring some config editing.

But it would be a disservice not to mention the phenomenal modding scene this game boasts. Mods easily elevate MW5 to a much, much higher rating - mech variety and customization and available items are massively improved with YAML mod series, missions are dramatically overhauled and bettered by Coyotes Mission Pack, maps are spiced up with vonBiomes (albeit at a hefty performance cost), rather bland pilot progression is made more interesting with Pilot Overhaul and so on and so forth. With a decent mod pack this game transforms into a very content rich, engaging MechWarrior title with a few hundred hours of engaging, fun gameplay.

Only two caveats come to mind:
1) Many mods require DLC and frankly the base game on its own is hard to recommend and
2) You have to be comfortable with the idea of building your own modpack but it's not as daunting as it might seems at first

So to sum it all up, base MW5: Mercs is meh but with all DLC and a few dozen mods it is excellent and very easy to recommend.

I was super excited to play this game. The last mech game that I played was Mechassault around 15+ years ago. I had fond memories of that game growing up. So far, my experience of this game is that the mechs are super clunky and it is a terribly unpolished experience. Whereas Mechassault felt like a flagship game, MechWarrior 5 feels like a first attempt at a video game by a small indi game company. I will keep playing in hopes that it gets better but the first mechs are so bad that it isn't even an enjoyable experience to play.

alpha strike intensifies

Mods are the only reason i have so many hours in this game, but even then the mods themselves are slowly not working or being poorly optimized now.

Do not run any AI mod, will cause all mechs to kinda strand in one place and do nothing or all mechs will swarm the player.

Do not get any the biome mods, even after turning everything down to poop level, you will be lucky to break 20fps on maps with any kind of weather effect.

Additional effects just clog up the screen so you can longer see anything on the battlefield.

With the release of clans, its clear as day how much this game is now being neglected by everyone, especially the DEVS and modders.

I had over 850 hours on Epic before something broke so I bought it on Steam. Is it monotonous? Absolutely. But, with good enough graphics to make me happy and the continued satisfaction of barreling through buildings, I keep coming back for more. I've loved the Battletech universe since the 90s so there's that added layer for me. I enjoy this more than Clans because there's more to do (maybe in the future PGI will add a sandbox style to Clans). Mods help tremendously but I still had a lot of hours before the mods.

this game is pretty fun i love using the marauder to eradicate any light mech within a 5 mile radius of my urbanmech herd

Nice Memory of the good old BattleTech! Love it!

If you like to nerd out and have 100's of hours of never ending fun this is the game for you.

good.