If you like protecting stupid AI players this is your game! Annoyingly Frustrating.
Now add in the fact the empire will come at you with everything they got. Most of the fighters are just there to distract you (red in the targeting computer). You really only have to kill the green ones (in the targeting computer) the rest are just to annoy you, make you waste your time, and randomly collide with you as you try to do something related to the current 'protect me I'm a stupid AI!' objective.
There are some good points to it, the graphics fit perfectly with the Star Wars universe, the only problem with them is the fact the empire is smart enough to fly around in space with black ships. I've played a lot of space fighter sims in my day and this game was the absolute hardest to track enemies and dogfight with them because they will fly by you and disappear. The Radar was piss-poor at that too. With no 'track closest' or ability to switch targets manually the targeting was annoying at best.
You get two wingmen (on most of the missions) that are just about as stupid as rocks. 'Attack those tie-fighters' and they go after the red ones. 'Attack the guns'... they just get blown up. 'Form up' and 'Flee' are the only things they get right. How useful. So remember you are in this alone, against all of the empire, while you are trying to protect those that should be helping.
I guess for a console this game is amazing or at least par for the course, but for those of you that grew up with real space flight sims you would do better by replaying Freespace or something. Bring on the negative comments...