[Note: Even after 100 hours I am not even done with the Elysium campaign and I am still an overall noob]

This game sure is a doozy and can be complicated to explain to others but lessgooo;

Red Solstice 2 is an RTS MOBA tactical rpg top down shooter with strategy metagame elements.
Still confusing? Ok, I'll try to explain further.

The game is mostly split into two parts: Campaign and Skirmish.
Playing the campaign gives you an almost X-COM feel for the world as you expand territory, research new stuff and face new threats while uncovering secrets.
You will also recruit new soldiers to your cause in order to both help you in mission and on that strategy metagame level.
Note that pretty much every "story" DLCs switches faction from the one in the base game (Elysium) and are balanced differently (as in more difficult!).
The cool thing with campaign is that you can play through pretty much the entire story up to 7 players giving an 8(!) player coop campaign which is quite damn impressive.

Although, here we come to the difference between Campaign and Skirmish.
When playing the campaign the host has the option upon starting said campaign wether the Campaign will be "coop or not".
What this means is that if you have "coop enabled" all connected players will have to use whatever the host has researched in the campaign so far.

Since the game took a lot of flak for this Campaign design decision, "disabling coop" is now available- allowing people to unlock their own stuff to bring to the campaign.

Which leads us to Skirmish, which just like RS1 is where most of the meat is. Most players are not in for the story in the campaign but want an challenging coop session (note: bot support is available).
When playing skirmish you have to unlock classes, weapons, gear and mods for personal use.
Note that the game has class restrictions for both Campaign and Skirmish though, so you can't bring multiple Terminators to a mission!

Plus with skirmish it is easier to coordinate level ups and daily challenges compared to campaign mode, so you may see way more people playing Skirmish rather than Campaign.

Ok, so that's the gamemodes- what about gameplay?

Red Solstice 2 plays mostly like an MOBA so you will unlock whatever skills you equipped on your suit (we'll come to that later) during the mission, so it's hard to unlock everything max level in one mission- you need to decide what's important!
Mainly the game uses an rts control scheme with hotkeys for your abilities but you have the ability to aim manually with your weapons. A quite recent update added proper WASD controls for those who want it.
Speaking of, secondary weapons are forced to be manually aimed.
Although if you want, you can enable "overwatch" with your primary weapon which causes your character to attack anything in range (not recommended for advanced play though!).

This makes it tense when moving around a large map since you may need to focus on walking to the next objective but need to put down threats along the way.
Ammunition is a scarce commodity but the class included in the Howell-Barrex dlc, the Engineer, can produce ammo and defensive measures.
If you play coop you can also share ammunition with each other, so it is important to check your ammunition with your friends before heading into a large battle.

So what are the toys in the game? Well, in this game you play as highly advanced soldiers in power armour.
These suits come in different flavours as I call "classes": so you may play as the well rounded Assault, the useful Medic, the sneaky Recon and the mighty complicated Terminator.
Pretty much all classes are well balanced but some cracks can be shown amongst them: Recon and Marksman are so-so and so was Demolition (which was recently buffed thanks to community feedback!).

So yeah, these suits are kinda like the Space Marine power armours in 40k mixed with Iron Man's suit.
You can install different modules and skills which may drastically alter how gameplay plays out. For an example the Heavy can have a auto-turret on it's shoulder while focusing on launching rockets, or becoming a mobile turret by itself!
All these modifications require energy so you need to min-max until you have something you feel good about. A good comparison would be the mech building part in the Armored Core series of games.

Next- GUNS GUNS GUUUNS!
There are plentyful of guns to mess around with in RS2!
Primary weapon examples: Rifles (both auto and semi automatic), light machine gun, minigun, autocannon, pistol, submachine gun and flamethrower to name a few.
Secondary weapon examples: Sniper rifles, cold thrower/freeze gun (mostly used to capture enemies), grenade launcher and rocket launchers to name a few.

And here is the cool thing about the suit customization: You can pretty much use any of the above weapons for any class, I won't stop you from trying to bring a rocket launcher with your recon!
Also the weapons are quite well balanced and are constantly balanced by the devs. Don't ignore the normal assault rifle just because it is the first gun you see, it's still useful!

Although, to unlock all these things you need to level up and here it gets complicated;
You have an XP (experience) that always goes up when you play a mission and successfully kill enemies.
Collecting enough XP's will give you a skill point which you can spend on a giant skill tree.
While most unlocks are only for Skirmish (or non-noop Campaign) there are some that affect both, be sure to read before you choose!

Which brings us to ranks, remember me noting level ups in Skirmish? This is it.
Along with the skill points to collect you can also increase your rank which gives slight stat boosts and more colours for your suit customization.
Here is the crazy thing about ranking up though: you need to perform certain challenges during a mission or over multiple missions!
It's hard to explain exactly why but it is way easier to plan out a rank up challenge in Skirmish rather than in Campaign. Trust me on this.

Another quite recent update added something else that can be brought between both Campaign and Skirmish: Medals.
There are medals you can unlock by during certain challenges, some for a specific class, some for other requirements.
I personally have not unlocked any of them as of yet but trust me, those can be hard to unlock without a proper team.

Those medals have complete stat changes that can further even more how your build works. As an example a medal might lower your hp but increase your ailment resistance.
So along with your powerlevels you also have to take into account what negatives a medal can accidentally bring.

So ending (TLDR section);
It's a weird mix of RTS, MOBA and top down shooter in an explorable world with a ton of unlockable stuff.
Playing this game solo is not recommended from me, so if you are searching for people then go visit the Red Solstice official Discord!
Bots can make the game playable but they are more acting as dumb mobile turrets. With players you could split up and cover more ground.

The Campaign can be extremely slow at times and it shows that most development has been spent on the Skirmish mode.
Extremely high customization how your character works in-game gives it a unique personality, kinda like an RTS MOBA of Armored Core with Space Marines if anything!
I have not seen anything like this game in a long time! This makes me think back to the late 1990's and early 2000's when devs risked to create something unique!

I highly recommend picking this one on a sale since it has it's weird design quirks, get some friends playing together and have a good time!

PS:
While this is the second mainline game it doesn't feel like you need to play the earlier Red Solstice games (RS1 and MIA) to understand the story.
If you are playing campaign there is a glossary you can read up on lore which explains which character is who and what he or she has done in the earlier games.

*NOTE: IF YOU ALREADY HAVE EDF 4.1 THEN WAIT FOR A SALE FOR THIS. MORE BELOW*

EDF 5 is more of an stand alone expansion rather than a sequel to its predessecors.
Ravagers are out and a new threat has emerged- the Primers which have some different enemy units compared to the ones in earlier games.
It is the same old principle- it is an third person shooter where you fight giant bugs and monsters...
More or less imagine this as the Starship Troopers game you always wanted- Service guarantees citizenship!

During missions you will be able to pick up new weapons and armor upgrades (basically more hp), which are recieved when you succceed the mission (you may also recieve some stuff if you unfortunally fail).

During gameplay you will be able to play one of these four classes (with some comparisons to 4.1)

Ranger
Your traditional soldier guy. The ranger can take two weapons, an support equipment (passive upgrade, new for 5) and a vehicle (new for 5).
If you are new to the EDF series you definately should start playing as this class.
He got good movement, with not so many downsides besides not being able to... Fly.
If you equip an vehicle for the Ranger you will need to earn credits during gameplay by destroying enemies.

Wing Diver (not to be confused with Air Raider)
Jetpack gal with some exotic weapons. Imagine lasers, lightning guns and such.
She can take two weapons and an passive upgrade for her jetpack/powercore (new for 5).
She can fly around like a maniac if you manage her powerlevels since her weapons draw power from her jetpack.
If you can mantain a good powerlevel whilst shooting, she can have quite the survivability.

Air Raider (not to be confused with Wing Diver)
Your number one air force contact and professional TF2 engineer.
He can bring three things (3 compared to 2 in EDF5) and a vehicle.
This guy can call down air strikes and all that good stuff, but he can also bring some support equipments almost like an TF2 engineer with turrets and healing items.
And while air strikes can be fun, they can be devastating in co-op gameplay where friendly fire is due.
Most air strikes and vehicles requires credits to spawn (earned in-game during missions) and so do vehicles (of which some are quite strong).

Fencer
Remember the exosuit from Aliens? This is pretty much that. You may also be able to compare these to Tau Battlesuits from Warhammer 40k or kinda like the Marauder Exosuits from Starship Troopers.
He can carry Monster Hunter (the game series from Capcom) sized melee weapons, gatling guns, artellery pieces, missile launchers and alot more.
The Fencer may be the most complicated class to play as, he good health but pathetic movement speed if built wrong.
This guy is a walking tank, not maybe when it comes to health but the weapons he carry...... OOooooh boi.
Even the controls for this guy is different compared to other classes, and that is because he can carry four (!) weapons at all times, with two weapons in two seperate weapon groups.
New for EDF5 is that the Fencer now can bring two passive upgrades, which can upgrade your boosters or movement speed- increasing survivability.

New for EDF5 also is that if you complete a mission while picking up new weapons, they can now be earned for other classes rather than only for your current class (new for EDF5).
And as earlier games, if you play harder difficulty you will be able to recieve better weapons but gathering duplicates are upgrading weapons to a certain extent (new for EDF5).

In any other either way this is a EDF game. They are quite repetetive, you will often fight the same enemies over and over again and you will see the same locations.
So if you can't relax with that you are basically playing an old japanese Kaiju invasion movie with overacting and hammy voice acting you may have a bad time.
But if you are fine with the above you may be in for a good time.

And don't forget this game comes with both splitscreen and online co-op!

So why did I join the EDF? I'm doing my part!