Sure the controls are complex, but the customization really balances that problem out...
The story is that you're a newly inducted Raven and you carry out mercenary missions to earn money and improve your mech. You also get to blow stuff up in the process, which is a big plus also.
The graphics for this game are great for the characters, but the environments are in dire need of work. The characters are nicely detailed and can be customized down to the size of your cupholder, which means that plenty of detail is focused on the mech. The environments, however, are generic and seem to be in the same place. You either have 1 of 3 things: An industrial building, wilderness, or a mixture of the two. The environments are also flattened out and just become an eyesore after a while. The enemies in the game that aren't mechs, or ACs as the game calls them, aren't that well done themselves. There's little diversity in shapes and sizes and they look like they came down with a bad case of blockitus. The enemy ACs are as well done as yours, though and that's good news.
The gameplay for this series has always been a little confusing and took some time ti master them. You have the shoulder buttons to move your sight up and down and left to right, which makes me woner why they could've just assigned that task to the right analog stick and put the fire command up on R1. Once you get past the goofy control scheme, you begin to see how fun this game really is. You can customize your mech's color and equipment, but be warned, you stack too much on your mech and it will become overwieght or maybe even have insufficient energy to haven carry them. This involves plenty of math to determine whether you can or can't add something onto your mech without having to take something away from it.
Along the way you can go up the ranks and participate in arena combat. This involves you slowly going up the ladder of competitors to unlock new equipment and earn a heaping helping of money along the way. You can make stradegies for each enemy by looking at each one's stats to see what equipment they have and how to counter that equipment's effects effectively. You can also choose where you want to battle and you have a decent amount of locations to choose from. You get either some industrial complexes, wilderness areas, or a mixture of both, just like the single player missions.
The multiplayer features are decent as you can load from different profiles and duke it out with your best mechs to see whos better. This seems like a great idea, and it goes well with the game, but the game lacks online features, which makes blowing up someone else's AC into a pile of junk from the other side of the world impossible.
Overall, this game has confusing controls, but it more than makes up for it with the amount of customization you can put into your ACs. If this game had online play, it would truly be one of the best mech games on the market, but since it lacks that, this feat isn't possible. If you want to buy it, go ahead, but you may want to rent it first just to be sure.