Full disclosure: I am biased to like this game. I love the franchise and backed the kickstarter. I played the table-top back-in-the-day. I still have the boardgame and a number of the expansion sets from the 80's/90's. I also was extremely disappointed with what PGI did to MWO (I was a backer for that as well) so had high expectations for this effort. Probably too high, honestly. But I want to be fair in this review. I have not played the multiplayer aspect of this game either, yet. So that is not covered in this review.

Overall, I like this effort. Solid 85%. I just don't LOVE it, like I remember loving previous interations of this (some of the MW and MC games). The good news is that the devs are still working it and improving it so I am still happy I backed it.

Pros:

- It's Battltech! The mechanics are slightly different than TT but the execution is good. It is very playable and captures most of the "feel" of the TT. This is huge win!
- Graphics and mech-models are excellent. Very few graphic glitches with my system.
- UI is fairly intuitive and works well.
- Stable. No real issues for me from Day 1 or during the beta. I realize there will always be some people with technical glitches but it seems solidly codes. They already released several patches as well, addressing some issues. So HBS is responsive.
- Graphical and atmospheric theme outside the missions. I know this is a stylistic opinion (and lots of people are not fans) but I like it. The music and slowmo, anime-type "cardboard cutout" (or whatever it's called) style of the cut scenes are a welcome difference. "Elegant" is what I would call it.
- Mechbay works just like it should. Only complaint is that you can't reorder your mechs in the bays, something HBS is planning to address.
- Challenging missions (more in Cons on variability) until late game.
- A real SAVE GAME function.

Cons
- Unity engine hogs resources. Game takes a long time to load nad transition between screens/modes.
- Mission rating variability. Missions are intel-rated by skulls, but there is a variation in reality vs the intel (which is OK), but he variability is too high, IMO, meaning that you really have to take your most popwerful mechs and pilots to every mission or risk getting trounced. This means that even if you have a bevy of mechs, you end up playing the "top four" all the time and don't feel as comfortable playing with other chassis. The save game feature mitigates this issue somewhat...;) This also means that training up junior mechwarriors is a risk.
- Head shots too prevalent IMO(both for you and the AI). Any headshot, whether it penetrates the armor or not, causes pilot damage. Even flamers and MG's (small weapons in the game). There are mitigators (adding Cockpit Mods and more health bars to your mechwarriors) but it is still frustrating in the early to mid-game until you can find these rare Cockpit mods).
- Story is OK and predictable vice amazing and immersive. There are so many lore books aout there, a number of those had to be better. You don't really feel as invested in your team as in other games with more immersive storylines. To be fair, the game is all open world after the story finishes so I understand there is a cost and balance to this for the designer/publisher.
- Response choices offered in dealing with your team or things that occur have no real, meaningful consequences.
- You only get to drive one lance of 4 mechs. Probably a unity engine technical limit but it would be nice to build bigger forces. The map sizes also probably drive this.
- The inability to turn off the transit cut scenes is both a nice break...and a huge waste of time. An option to turn off would be better ( and it is reportedly coming).
- The balance is a litte off in pilot abilities as Bulwark is really better than almost anything else.


Overall, the game is enjoyable despite some of the issues and most of them are being addressed. The most telling part for me...I will keep playing it even though I have beat the campaign.