As someone who has backed this game as soon as the kickstarter went up and has waited 3 years to play it, I can confidently say it's great.

I haven't finished the game yet, and I am not that far into the story so far so I can't give a complete review of that. But with where i am at now and what I have seen, it's damn good. The setup for the game is well executed, and there is attention to detail everywhere in dialogue. The best part in my opinion is that for those new to the Battletech universe, key words are highlighted so you can mouse over them to read a popup with a bit of context about the specific place/people/object.

Gameplay wise, it's definitely the Battletech I know and remember. Some things are a bit more streamlined or modernized, but it all flows well and fits together into a snug tactical combat simulation that encourages strategy and decision making.

For those who don't know what Battletech's gameplay is: it's commanding big stompy mechs around while trying to dish out damage and not take as much damage. Health is seperated into different parts of the mech, such as arms, torso, legs, and head. Having one of these reach 0 means that component of the mech is destroyed, and any equipment on there is gone/nonoperational. The pilot also risks injury or death when the mech they are piloting takes damage, and experienced pilots are no easy loss.

This ties into the main game, which is the management part. Between missions, you will be managing your mercenary outfit. This means using money you earn on deployments to repair your mechs, buy new mechs, buy and refit your mechs with new equipment, hire new Mechwarriors to pilot your mechs, and make your jumpship jump to different star systems. You can take new contracts that will grant you different payouts, salvage rights to anything that is left on the battlefield, and also boost reputation with different factions.

Overall, everything fits together really well; A lot better than most modern titles I see.

The game does push Unity to it's absolute limits (as is apparent with the framerate issues and occasional stutter), and manages to actually look really good in motion during depoyments and in the hub area. The mechs are beautiful, the textures are great, the particles, weapon effects, and weather all look great, and the inside of your ship is exactly how it should be. The one gripe I do have, and it's again minor, is that the character models tend to look a bit... off. I think this is mostly due to their animation rigging setups, the skin shaders, and lastly sometimes there are some odd preportions (just take a look at Yang and you'll probly see what I mean). The animations for them are also a bit stiff at times, and seem just slightly off. This is most likely because it is HBS's first time doing 3D characters and animating them, but they look good enough overall. The 2D animated art style they have in cutscenes isn't perfect by any means, but the visuals for them still look pretty stunning and they do a good job of capturing Battletech's universe within their art style.

The only issues right now are the optimization (which is like 90% Unity's fault for having such garbage graphics optimization), and the occasional longer than they should be pauses in combat during a mech's movement or attack. These are both minor issues that can be easily dealt with through some time and patches.

EDIT IN 2021: Back when I wrote this, I did not fully understand how insensitive or poorly voiced this particular comment was. I've always been for LGBTQ rights, strongly so. I poorly worded what I meant here. What I actually meant, is that while having this option is fine, this is the only time this subject is ever touched on. When I said make an impact through gameplay, I meant it. Why not have an important character that goes by a different pronoun instead? In my eyes, that would have made a much better and bigger impact than a selection-box. Sorry for any mis-understandings or hard feelings caused by the original comment, I should have specified what I meant more.

One thing that does seem a bit apparently out of place is the pronoun selection; why do we need that? This something that needs to try and make a statement, it's a game. Make statements about things through gameplay, not silly additions when you only need to specify if your character is a male or a female.

A very good game overall, with fixable issues that should not completely impede you from enjoying the experience.