Without lore to force certain mech choices, you have to choose what actually works in battle. And unfortunately as this game tries to stick with canon load outs, that means no much.

Oh sure, you can reconfigure your mechs to be walking death machines that actually work (or really just marauders and Atlas IIs), but because of the games modification system, you will just take the mechs with the good quirks from the DLCs and ignore every other thing you find.

The story is fine, and all that's needed for your stompy walking tank game. But the universe feels shallow, as there are just too few interesting ways to bling out your mechs. But fortunately there is an insane amount of mods to make is just as in depth as you actually want.