MechWarrior Online

Slightly overpriced, but a more than worthy successor to one of PC gaming’s greatest franchises that nails the important part: combat.

Piranha has long promised that “community warfare” will address this lack of endgame, but that feature has been delayed so often that it’s hard to be sure if it’s ever coming out. It’s a bit of a shame that there’s so little reason to keep at MechWarrior Online. The matches themselves are fun–and as it is free-to-play, there’s no barrier to entry–but without any form of metagame it’s hard to stay engaged.

Once you get the hang of it all, the strategic combat and its required pre-game build strategy and in-game adaptivity is fun, but don’t expect to master its tricky team-based combat and overwhelming upgrade system without a serious commitment.

What the game has in single match entertainment, it lacks in overall cohesiveness and reasons for playing long term. It clearly has the potential to be much more than what it currently is, but that potential has yet to be reached.

MechWarrior Online does a pretty good job in balancing out the gameplay and gives you lots of BattleMechs, weapons and items to buy, but it's got only two game modes and it's definitely not that fun.

When firing on all cylinders, MWO is an enjoyable sim-shooter, but for all the overheating energy weapons in the world, the current product still feels a little half-baked.

If the game had made better use of its assets and given us a reason to care about more than the fleeting pleasures of customization and combat, it might be worth enduring the currency grind. As it is, like its strongest mechs, it runs out of power far too fast.

MechWarrior Online is a smart game burdened by free-to-play annoyances and unfortunately lacking in things to do outside straightforward combat. The grind of match after match eventually erodes your enthusiasm as you start to wonder what it’s all for. Considering MechWarrior has a rich history to draw from, it’s hard not to feel like something’s missing when you find yourself in an endless arena.