*BZzzssshhhttt---* --- *Screen flickers on*
It's been a year! The game has now had a steam and GOG release, a decently sized patch, and a DLC! And, because I am an absolute sucker, I bought the whole pack!
So, the issues remain: It's still a game that has a mediocre story that relies quite a bit on padding and fluff. The game still has some development issues, like how the hyped infantry is *still* not in, becuase they found it hard to tune right. On the other hand, the padding is significantly better tuned now. The awful tutorial can finally be skipped, and it's replaced with an intro movie that is at least a decent watch. The randomly generated missions are a lot more eager to throw heavy stuff at me, and I'm facing medium 'mechs immeadiately (which in itself helps pacing considerably, becuase I can now try and salvage them and upgrade my lance quicker). The soundtrack has been expanded considerably too.
My chief annoyance, which is HUD distortion also distorting the subtitles, has been fixed too. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea, but they have repented!
It feels less monotone and less dumb. That shifts it for me from a mediocre mech game to a decent mech game, but it still can't hold a candle to Mechwarrior 4, or Brigador, Battletech and Titanfall.
It now has cross-platform co op, and non-dlc owners can join hosts that have the DLC just fine. Co-op stomping, co-op mech tuning and co-op mech painting is in itself a lot of fun and it's nice to have a game that now features that. It, imo, no longer needs mods to be fun, which is not a high bar to clear, but still.
Oh and it now has a career mode that cuts out the story alltogether from what I can tell. Not sure if that's an improvement, but it atleast lets you play with all those mods without having to go through the (better polished now) intro missions again.