Doesn't sound great. I was hoping this would be good even if not a 'traditional' Bioware type game - though I've certainly had my reservations, given not-so-recent-anymore developments. Well, I'll still wait for the full reviews and perhaps a while after still. Sometimes it takes a bit of time getting these types of games right. But sounds like there are several quite fundamental flaws here.

It's kind of a trend with inXile, releasing unpolished gems. But I honestly don't blame them for it, I've learned to wait for their enhanced/patcheed/director's cut versions :)

Now this is a review I fully agree with. As I also excepted something similar like Shadowrun. Instead we got a badly written campaign that didn't nab my interest.Even the expansion DLC's are not promising. On top of all this they are now owed by Paradox who is known for DLC milking. So the future is not bright for HBS.

This is an RPG site. Of course I'm going to mention how much a game is an RPG (or not). That's something our readers want to know. And it still didn't have anything to do with whether I liked it or not, as much as you want to think otherwise.

Anthem is the first BioWare game I haven't been absolutely dying to see launched since I played Dragon Age: Origins. In fact, I have very little interest in it. But I'm hoping it's a huge, freakin' success because, otherwise, I think I will never get to see Dragon Age 4.I get very angry at what I see as the unthinking, unrelenting criticism of BioWare. But even I, an unrelenting "fanboy," am really disappointed with the decision to pursue this project. Inquisition was a huge success in terms of sales, and yet next year is the absolute earliest we could hope to see a sequel (with 2021 or 2022 being more realistic) because the Powers That Be wanted to shoot for a Destiny-esque cash cow. When you have beloved series like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, either retire them with a satisfactory conclusion or commit to investing the time and resources to make timely, quality sequels. Don't make loyal fans wait 6-8 years between games. (And "no" it doesn't make them better because the actual development time remains the same; they're just not getting worked on.) Don't half-sass the effort and make something disappointingly sub-par.Sorry for the rant, but I've needed to get that off my chest for a while.

I'm thinking this may be a sleeper hit for me personally. I'm not thinking all that much about it (and only getting updates from the good people at Banshee), but I can see myself really loving it when it comes out.

For me the story missed an opportunity and I never gave it a fair shake after that.I knew the first mission you were helping a princess to take the throne or whatever, but that's all I knew. So, in the tutorial when that goes tits up, I was surprised and very intrigued. Then a couple missions later she shows up fine...I thought the story was going to take an unexpected turn and a different journey, instead it's one I've seen and played 100 times, which would have been fine if I hadn't had such a strong reaction to the missed opportunity.Still, if there is dlc or expansion that lets me really connect with Rising Sun again, I will probably buy it, but if it's just more kingdom management, probably not.As far as the game itself, it's...okay? I am not an RTS player, but I grew up playing Mech Warrior. As I heard one review say, XCom does this turn based combat thing better.

So, what I am getting is, Meh, with an upside? It's still not the type of game I would play. My first pass through any ME game was on normal so I could enjoy the story unfettered; also, I mostly played an adept or sniper. I haven't heard much that makes me want to give it a go, but the initial reviews are not as bad as I was expecting.

I actually did read the entire review, and I will admit, I did misread that part. That is my bad. And, as I said, I agree with your comment about the story for the campaign.Here's the caveat though. You don't mention any of the small events that can occur while you're jumping from planet to planet. During one event, you can have an engineer complain to you that people are trying to go swimming in water tanks. One of the upgrades for the Argo is to invest in a pool. A follow up story involves some of your pilots going skinny dipping and it gives you an opportunity to chastise them, or let it slide. I found some of those small little anecdotes to be quite interesting and funny. I also wonder if you've tried Flashpoint?I'm not going to say the story is still anything fantastic, but there are small gems here and there. That said, the story is not the focus of Battletech, and expecting Battletech to have the same level of story as Shadowrun considering Shadowrun is an RPG is silly.Then there's the difficulty. You talk about the game being easy later on, but there are ways to make the game infinitely harder. You can decrease the amount of money you receive, require more parts to build a mech, etc. Yet you do not mention this.You clearly wrote this review with the intention of bashing it because it wasn't an RPG. From your introduction: "It is pure tactical strategy with little in the way of RPG elements." I could just quote the whole intro, but I think this line sums up your entire thought process.That is what I found to be juvenile.Of course it has little in the way of RPG elements! It's not an RPG! You say so yourself right there!And who cares if Harebrained made Shadowrun first? That has nothing to do with anything. That's like like getting pissed off at Baldur's Gate for not being like Shattered Steel. Bioware made Shattered Steel first, therefore shouldn't everything that followed be just like it? (Also, small piece of trivia, but Shattered Steel was a MechWarrior clone, guess what franchise MechWarrior is from?)Does that honestly make sense to you?Also, the game is listed in steam under "Strategy", and if you pay attention to the most popular tags for the game, you'll notice that RPG is not among them. You can find tons of games on steam with an RPG tag slapped on them for something as simple as being able to choose left or right. Hell, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is labelled as an RPG.

I requested Battletech because I thought it was going to be more of an RPG (and, hey, look, Steam gives it an RPG tag). But I disliked it because it's dull. Did you read anything other than the conclusion? Your paragraph about character builds indicates you didn't.