I have been playing BattleTech and related properties like Mechwarrior, Mechassault etc. for a long time. And I have played a LOT of them, as well as quite a bit of the tabletop. This is on balance probably the 'best' battletech game there is right now in terms of accessibility, storytelling, and gameplay, in roughly that order. This is probably the best game to be introduced to the setting with for the following reasons:

1. The skill floor is low and the skill ceiling is high--just like it should be.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is considered the easy XCOM for babies who poop their diapers, and I had to save scum my way turn by turn to slog through it. I've beaten this game all the way through 5 or 6 times. That said, you can absolutely get yourself into all kinds of incredibly sticky situations that SEEM borderline insoluable: For example you can lose a priceless and irreplacable LosTech weapon or a whole mech, an elite pilot can disappear into a red mist from a gauss rifle headshot.
The key is perseverance. This is one of the few games I'd recommend an ironman in--just to see what you can actually survive. One time I got my ♥♥♥♥ kicked in so hard I went from vets in heavy mechs to a bunch of noobs in light mechs, but I was still able to just barely scrape by and pay bills for a bit before we got back into proper fighting shape.


2. The storytelling is by far the best video game treatment BattleTech has gotten in ages. The only thing that even comes close, in *moments,* that I know of is Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, and that game is about as accessible as a handrail surrounded by a square mile of polished marble covered in grease. A lot of veterans like Mitch Gitelman and of course, Jordan Weisman himself (who also created the Shadowrun universe!) worked on this game's story, and a lot of the local planetary lore (and some jokes in the achievements) comes from an actual play run by the developers for a while. I've often joked there's more pathos in this game's introductory cutscene than all of Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, and I probably will again.

3. And that's all before you get into the mod scene, which can do all kinds of wild stuff. If you've run the base game and career a bunch and got left wanting more to play with, you might check out Roguetech, which adds THE ENTIRE INNER SPHERE and THOUSANDS OF MECHS. It also edits a lot of the base game to be a lot more challenging, so be ready to die a lot.

This is a good pick if you're looking for a tactical or simulator game that's going to scratch a unique itch, someone new to tactics games that wants something forgiving but challenging enough to really teach you some ropes, just like giant robots doing giant robot things, or enjoy the BattleTech universe and wish the games took more interest in depicting its actual fiction.

Buggy as hell with many reliability issues and lots of lag

It will not see the controller correctly making it unplayable on the Rog Ally X when playing on SteamOS. I suspect you may run into problems on other SteamOS devices so I would not recommend this game until it is verified to be fully compatible.

Will update this if a fix is ever found or Dev fixes this.