If you're a fan of mech games, there are different subgenres to choose from. There's the difficult twitch combat of Armored Core and the beat-'em-up brawls of Gundam Breaker. MechWarrior 5: Clans doesn’t fit into either of those categories. You pilot slow, lumbering machines, and it's more like a mecha XCOM than anything else. While that might sound like a strong premise, it'll just make you want to play better games.

This is a narrative-heavy experience with absolutely gorgeous facial animations and stunning sci-fi cutscenes. The clans are on a mission to retake the inner planets, and you’ll do so one staging ground at a time.

From orbit, you allocate technicians to repair mechs damaged on sorties and scientists who will research upgrades so that your machines hit harder and fight longer. These all boil down to simple percentage buffs on weapons and abilities like cooling or jump jet recharge speed. You’ll also get to upgrade your five-strong cast of pilots, but again these upgrades just make them incrementally stronger.

While the XCOM-style preparation is nice, the moment-to-moment gameplay on the ground gets repetitive and frustrating quickly. Even the light mechs are sluggish, making it nearly impossible to effectively dodge incoming attacks — jump jets offer some verticality but they’re a nightmare to control, so it's hard to adequately take advantage of the terrain. Repair stations are sparse, and since your limbs and weapons can be shot off, you only get weaker as the missions go on and get harder.

The tactical aspect of the game is also finicky. You can give your four squadmates orders, but only within a short radius of yourself, limiting their potential. Your choice is a map that doesn’t pause the action and is therefore useless in a fight, or a quick menu that takes up most of the screen and isn’t very quick, also making it a burden in fights. The first-person view is neat, and the ability to take control of your squadmate's mechs is novel, but these features aren't enough to shake the feeling your time would be better spent playing XCOM.