SO I just finished it, and I have to say, it's kind of a mixed bag. Some awesome in there, some stuff I really disliked.
Just to get the good things out of the way first: The overall story was great and interesting, and full of great ideas. I have some problems with details, but they are mostly matters of taste, more on the stuff that really bothered me later. Things like the United Earth fleet behind the second jump node made for interesting developments and were the story and mood highlight of the campaign for me.
I absolutely loved the feel of the first few missions in act I, to be honest, they are my favourite of the whole campaign. It felt genuinely different, challenging and rewarding to fly without all the candy that makes our lives so easy in FS.
The overall mission design was also good, with ammunition playing an important role, one really had to think about what to engage, shockwaves being extremely dangerous and fuel limitations on the afterburners made for interesting and gripping situations.
So, I would call this a very good campaign, bear this in mind before I come to the things that really kind of upset me.
The first thing I did in many missions was frantically adding ships to the escort list, and pressing F4 from time to time to read messages I missed. I really don't know why ships that are vital to the mission aren't on the escort list all the time. Nothing is more frustrating than having to engage a fighter that's on your tail and then searching through all the ships again until you find the one you actually need.
Then comes one point that is entirely a matter of taste, but I have to say it: I really didn't like some of the writing. While I enjoyed the overall storyline, I couldn't stand my wingmen and the Lunar Republic overall after a while... Somehow I felt like flying for the greatest dicks of Sol, that will knowingly fight dirty, do bussiness with criminals - all of which I could stomach, if it weren't for the arrogance they were showing all the time. Those crazy martians all envy us oh so superior Moon-men. Don't worry, quality over quantity, all those other factions have worse pilots than us, and we are really the best at everything. Oh, but we are also the likeable underdogs of Sol, because we only have one moon, and everyone else has a planet or even more.
As for Juan and Brock, I kinda liked some moments (like Brock's name origin talk and the feel of the talk in the final mission), but sometimes it seemed inconsistent, and I really didn't know if I should like either of them, because in some missions they just seemed to be trying to out-dick each other in different ways. Juan by sucking up to command and being as yellow as a rubber duck, and Brock by doing the opposite, but both in a strange, overall unlikeable way. But this is the point where "IMO" applies the most, as it's really a matter of taste.
But the whole mission "Light Brigade", this was when I actually stopped thinking "well, I have some problems with some of the stuff, but overall, this is really good" and actually literally said out loud: "Bull****!"
First of all: The mission design is incredibly flawed. If you are flying well, you can actually survive and shoot down all the bombers. Of course this will leave you without ammo, at which point I ran away about 5 clicks and just hit the time compression mode. I had to wait around 40 minutes until finally my destroyer bit the dust, and that was after several tries on this mission. And then... well... The bull**** part is of course the sudden turn the story makes.
So... A warship gets destroyed while carelessly charging into an enemy blockade. And this suddenly gets everyone - including the enemy - so teary eyed they call a ceasefire and want to negotiate peace, because... SOLDIERS ON A BATTLESHIP DIED IN A WAR
I don't even get why your own wingmen get THAT stricken with emotion. It wasn't even the Luna, on which we were stationed far longer. And the JC and UNE? They should press on, use their advantage, and not go into: "OMG, what have we done, we have DESTROYED AN IMPORTANT ASSET OF OUR ENEMY! Oh god, let the killing end, let's make peace on terms that you may negotiate, oh wondrous Lunar Republic."-mode. No, seriously. I literally said bull**** to my screen after reading the outcome there. That would be THE chance of the UNE to annex their own moon and the JC to conquer mars. That would be the final turning point of the war, the Lunar Stalingrad, the point at which the UNE and JC have their victory...
Now, it could have worked, if there had been some more explanation on their motivation, like if they had lost a Reliant of their own during the engagement - which as far as I can guess could only happen if it were disabled, which is next to impossible or at least very hard to achieve given the overall mission design there. It even gets stranger, when Brock in the next mission states "there will only be peace until everyone had a chance to rebuild." Chance to rebuild? Jovian and Earth..ican fleets seem to be in perfectly adequate shape to wage war against the crippled forces of M&M. There is no indication at this point, that their death toll has been so great, that they would give up on their chance at victory...
And the last mission... I get the idea, and I like it, but I don't like the execution. I don't see how it would completely destroy the negotiations, if KC forces identifiable as such would kill of some of the diplomats. It would make things a bit more complicated, but in the long run - shouldn't it more likely unite the factions against the KC? When they do a charge like that, everyone knows it was the KC that did it. Any reasonable man would not go and say "Oh, it was the fault of you martians" or "oh, you moon-people, it's all your fault". They would clearly say "damn those Kuiper crapmunchers!"
It would work perfectly, and IMO it would work only, if there were Kuiper agents planted among the forces that protect the convoy. So that they can really sow distrust among the men, if one of the martian ships, bribed, instigated or infiltrated by KC agents, suddenly attacked the lunar diplomats -THAT would be warmongering. But that all-out attack just doesn't convince me at all as truly threatening the peace effort.
So, overall, I love the campaign, and In appreciate all the hard work that went into it - but the ending just feels plain wrong to me. It may be just a matter of taste, I dunno. Maybe others will really like it, but I just couldn't stomach it...