Has anyone tried the new Battletech game?

[Ilios]

http://harebrained-schemes.com/battletech/

It's pretty cheap right now but would like some opinions before buying.

Thanks!

[El Grillo]

I played through the campaign about a year ago as a big fan of XCOM and Fire Emblem, and it was fun but not outstanding, mostly for difficulty and AI reasons, though I know they've made some balance changes since. The AI is really limited by having to use the stock mech designs and doesn't properly use its pilot skills, whereas the player can really mini-max them. Combined with a relatively small max squad size of 4, and relatively uniform mission objectives where you engage one enemy formation at a time, more or less at your leisure, I ended up fielding the exact same squad that outscaled the enemy more and more over time. It reminded me of modern XCOM where the difficulty is mostly front-loaded and then there's a long victory lap where you get to play with all of your shiny toys, but in Battletech the beginning is fairly tame as well.

I think there's room for variant play if you are interested in more of a challenge, and I recall that the modding scene was pretty active, so if it's on sale then I'd say it's worth a try.