While it can be fun to jump in for brief periods of time, the learning curve is steep for new players and the gameplay is hectic and repetitive in the long term. Even when winning matches, the frustration due to the game's chaotic nature can have a tendency to outweigh the overall fun factor. Matchmaking is constantly being worked on but seemingly never improved. Playing in team based modes (which comprises 3/4 of the currently available game modes) tend to result in one team dominating while the other team struggles and constantly deals with a rotating team due to players constantly leaving due to frustration. Making matters worse, while still in the open beta the game functionality and regular player base seems to have filtered out many of the curious newcomers and has culled the herd down to those hardcore players that have mastered their mechs, leveled each one to the maximum level, and don't necessarily want things to change. This leads to very limited options when searching for available servers and almost guarantees a new player to be dumped into a match full of high level, very experienced players. If in the US and searching at night on a weekend, you may be hard pressed to find just one server for each type due to the lack of activity. New players that express their concern about this painful level gap in game or on the message boards results in many of the established players explaining as a fact that mech level means nothing in Hawken (if you are as incredulous reading this as I was when someone first tried to explain this concept to me check the hawken message boards as there are many discussion regarding it). Even if this were the case (which obviously it is not leveling gives bonuses and bonuses give advantages), this would mean that the best case scenario is that the currently implemented upgrades system is close to worthless. =/

If you are curious go check it out and think for yourself, but based on experience it would seem the best course of action would be to wait until the game is out of beta before really investing any time (or God forbid money) in hopes that the fixes to gameplay and balancing are ironed out. While the game is in beta it seems as though focus is mainly on overall stability (there are very few crashes) and implementing new content for the dedicated fan base as opposed to making the game more accessible and enjoyable for new players.… Expand

Pros: nice graphics, didn't crash a single time.
Cons: Chaotic gameplay, idiotic match making, confusing interface and even more confusing maps. Game modes are not grate also. I want to feel that I drive a 50 ton mech not ninja in jumsuit.

After the closed Beta, I just don't feel Hawken gives me any incentive to play any more. Player customization is lacklustre, and only available to those paying for it. However all players have the opportunity to purchase new mech types after grinding. I found the game itself to have limited appeal due to the fact that 80% of the gameplay consists of dashing around unloading ordinance into enemy players.… Expand

First of all, if you don't like F2P, this game isn't for you. If you don't pay for a decent mech, you won't do anything. This is a Pay To Win.

Second, I didn't find any complexity in the fights. It's a plain simple I-see-I-shoot, with slow and boring machines.

I have put in a considerable amount of time into Hawken over the past couple of weeks. Firstly, I'd like to clear this up and say that this game is NOT pay to win. The starter recruit mech is customizable, and is one of the stronger loadouts, so if you're struggling, I'm afraid the problem lies with the user. Playing with friends is a blast and adds a lot more depth to combat. Relying on your team mates for drop repairs, cover fire, shields and radars and baiting / ambushing your oponents is very rewarding. With repair guns and a Technician class hinted in the game files, I can only speculate that we can see some whole new elements of gameplay being added in the future. Being a beta, I have high hopes for Hawkens future. There are some balance issues here and there, but nothing that cant be overcome with solid communication and maneuvering with your team. I would love to see a lot more customization for the mechs, some form of ranking system or rated play and a party system and have faith that the Hawken devs are listening to their playerbase. Hawken is a great game, and worth a try.… Expand

Hawken is a mech game fast & light mechs similar to gundam mechs NOT SIMILAR TO mechwarrior mechs. Its a quick learning curve game. For a free game this game is a winner, especially because this is a beautiful graphic game. To the reviewer that says you need to pay to win, maybe he didn't play it long enough but the only thing that I can figure you can buy with money that you cant buy with play credit is aesthetics parts. YOU WILL ENJOY THIS GAME IF YOU LOVE MECHS OR FPS games.… Expand

I think Hawken is a refreshing comeback of the deathmatch-style FPS, with a nice twist of being a hybrid FPS (you're essentially piloting a mech). As I love deathmatch, I've been thoroughly enjoying Hawken! The different mech types are very varied which makes for some interesting tactics (my favourite is the Sharpshooter, though most of the maps are difficult to snipe in). There are various different abilities available such as placing decoy mechs (that don't move, but copy you otherwise) and throwing an EMP that disables all nearby mech's weapons (including yours if you're too close).

Overall I'd definitely recommend it, as it's also one of those games that will only succeed if the player-base remains a critical mass to keep the games fresh. So tell all your friends to come join the fun!… Expand

An ok game for F2P. Can hold my attention for a couple days. Beyond that, the action is not really that great. The game does not feel like huge battle mechs, more like your average twitchy short range FPS. My biggest gripe is engagement distances they are way too short. 100 meters is long range sniper... Seriously? Even BF2142 had better mechs, even though they were just a small part of that game. Using active defense to block missles, slow, heavy damage overheating cannons. I don't feel this here.

Even the world of tanks has engagement distances of around 350 meters, possibly more. But in this game you just get some hazy fog obscuring distant stuff. With this in mind, the levels feel small and while there is some hot around the corner action, it gets boring fairly fast.

Combine this with some "OP" flavors of mechs and general lack of players, and I had to suffer through some horribly unbalanced matches where little one can do counts.… Expand

Hawken could be described as the embodiment of "average". It does not really stand out in any way, possibly due to the bland graphics, so super foggy to the point that you might imagine the game is taking place underwater. The game modes can be fun, and require team play, but the lack of things such as auto balance, and some unbalanced map design mean that winning a game in Hawken might not be due to your skills, but most likely due to some underlying fault in the map/ mechanics/ balance.
Hawken aims to be a hit to the "unskilled" f2p crowd, with level ups to keep you interested, unlocks and cosmetic items, and this comes at the expense of the skilled player, when the team based game modes are full of people generally not helping. Ultimately the game modes are what will either make or break this game. If Hawken does manage to cater for skilled, competitive players, and fixes the little annoyances here and there, it will no doubt become a great game. However, given that these problems do exist, it means more likely the game will be just-another-UT3-game, as easily forgettable as it is was initially exciting.… Expand

As Hawken is currently in beta, a lot is subject to change, and not available or accessible yet. But so far Hawken is shaping up to be a great western take on a gundam style mech shooter.

Don't let the first 15 minutes in game get you down, there is a semi-steep learning curve, and you have to adjust your fps-skills and tactics before you get work done in Hawken.

Hawken is a brilliant game. The sense of weight and scale is apparent. The combat, once you get the hang of it, is extremely fast based and reactionary. The biggest mechanic that a lot of reviewers seem to be missing is the Dodging / Boosting system.
You have to be quick to dodge using your boosters. Read your opponents moves and play strategically while still maintaining twitch reflex shooting. Its very, very intense. Don't treat it like your average FPS, you aren't a humanoid, you are a mech, you have separate advantages and disadvantages, get used to them. Verticality plays a huge role in the gameplay as well. The mechs are agile in a whole different way. But if you try to run and gun like an average FPS, you're toast.

There really isn't any other game like Hawken out right now. Its a Mech Sim FPS with an arcade game feel. There are 8 mechs to choose from, I think, each with their distinct advantages and abilities. The game also features a very robust item/ mech upgrade system, much time will be spend configuring the build that suits you best.

As far as the F2P model, its rather well designed, if you play smart and play well, procuring ingame credits is a breeze (as is leveling up). If you lack the patience or time, real world currency can be used for unlocks.

Did I mention the game looks incredibly stunning? No other game imo right now touts as much polish and detail visually, its remarkable that its F2P.

Get this and decide for your self.

A++

PS. Its still in Beta, it will only get better from here on out.… Expand

First off, this is not a Pay to Win game. The most significant advantage you get is from skill points obtained through experience and leveling up, both of which you can't buy (although you can buy a exp-booster to temporarily increase the rate of exp gain). You also get to choose how these skill points are distributed in a skill tree for each mech. With a good distribution, you can get a noticeable advantage in close matches if the other mech is 10 or so levels less than you (max lvl is 25). The starter mech is the absolute best mech to learn on (one of my favorites in general), and you can buy a new mech right off the bat with free credits. Most mechs are balanced and the balance is only getting better as the open beta continues. You can also buy internal upgrades that are mostly useless, additional items to equip (you can only equip 1 offensive and 1 support), and aesthetic items.

The game looks like a triple-A title, it's easy to forget that this is a relatively small indie team behind it. There are 4 stages currently, and I think the game could do with more diversity on this front. Hawken differs from a normal FPS mostly in how you maneuver. The mechs can feel very slow before you learn how to move effectively and manage fuel and boosting. The gameplay is like many other FPS titles: movement, positioning, and awareness primarily decide who win fights, while reflexes and aim are crucial. It is balanced rather well in that the most skillful player will nearly always win the match, and most mech types offer similar overall combat ability despite difference in combat style. There is still more balancing to do among the mechs, but the current state of the game is very good for open beta. Faster smaller mechs seem to be winning more often in free-for-all deathmatch, but the balance is better in team game modes.

Current Negatives: Matchmaking can take a long time, and the results are sometimes very one-sided. Teams are not auto-adjusted during a match if a player quits. Gaining hawken credits takes a bit too long for a guy with a full-time job, but the weekly rotation of free mechs helps a lot in this regard.

Overall, Hawken is a very fun, fast paced shooter where you get the feeling of piloting a mech with a more FPS style of piloting and gameplay. There's a lot to learn and skill decides winners at the end of the day. I've been having the time of my life with this game and I would recommend it to anyone who likes FPS titles, but is looking for something different from the standard crop of war shooters.… Collapse

Gameplay is boring. Interface is confusing. It's pay-to-win. This game has no soul, only demand for more money spend on it. It's just another try to get some money without doing anything for their customers.

Really stupid gameplay because if you are matched in a team with all people that don't pay and the other team is full of payed users they will kick your asses (happens more than you would think) and most of the paid mechs suck even more than the free one which makes for a really disappointing experience.

Hawken isn't a free game to play, you play online matches and acquire in game currency to buy new Mechs, purchase different equipment and different perks. There's multiple game modes and you can filter the matches based on your location. One thing I did find was for the USA East it was tough to find any matches but by switching it to USA West I had no problem. Its a decent enough game but it does only hold your attention for so long. I can play for a hour at a time or so..it's a good way to waste some time but its also fun but for whatever reason i get bored quick.… Expand

Definitely one of the best games ever, deserve a 10 out of 10, it doesn't deserve all its negative scores as the game feature great mechanics and gameplay and also one of the best graphics I have ever in a free to play. The idea of pay to win is definitely not in hawken, the game can be harsh on newbies but even for a fps newbie like me, I can still enjoy the game

For all the criticism towards this game to be "Pay 2 win"; I can agree to a point that I have seen a lot of low-level players piloting Rocketeers and other junk alike, but the thing is, the first 3-4 games I played, I won them all being the MvP in the starting robot without even knowing how to use my abilities or items. The game is skill-based and advantages with or without paying, i will still salute it for being so dependant on user-input because that is how a game is supposed to be which is incredibly rare in this era of games. It also has excellent latency-compensation technologies, Played with an US friend, packing maybe 200-400 ping and the only problem I had was hitting my projectile rockets on long-medium distances which instead made me run up to my opponents and blew my load in their faces instead and to top all that off, the game supports VR as well. The bad things I've found so far would be the extremely overused tactic of "Dodging" back and forth behind a wall, shooting rockets and the like, especially by thinner mechas. It would be alright in itself if it wasn't so impossible to hit someone during their dodge because the game logic is that your 50 ton war-machine can move at the speed of light when supposedly dodging, meaning you'll get maybe 1-2 bullets out of 500 into the guy if you're lucky, very close and spraying before he dodges. You also earn a lame amount of cash after lenghty matches, even if you win, estimatedly 50-150 credits and a mecha costs maybe 6400 and one gun/tool/module roughly 3500 forcing you to grind quite a bit if you wanna get something nice. Still an excellent game mind you, and it would be much better with some "dodge" kinks and weird lag ironed out.… Expand

Wow...so many ignoramuses giving this a bad review because they think it's a pay-to-win game. I have just started playing this game two weeks ago and had no need to spend a single penny on this game.

The starting mech that you get for FREE, even though it's not the best looking, is one of the best in-game mechs with free internals and 700hp (more than any light mech or medium mech in the game). A lot of high level players are still using the starting mech.

You can buy every other mech and all their upgrades with Hawken Points(No need to buy Meteor bucks) that you get from playing the game. It's very easy to get a lot of points. Plus, they give you 5000 starting Hawken Points when you start. With new mechs costing a little over 6400 points, you can buy any other mech you wish in no time. You can get about 200 points per game, very easy to buy ALL the mechs in a relatively short time span. To reiterate, this game is Play-to-Win not Pay-to-Win. Only visual aesthetics cost real money. This game is a AAA quality game that has people peranoid with the "Free to play" title.

As for the game itself, it's a fun mixture of Mech Warrior, Counter Strike, and an RPG with a skill tree. The game is not perfect by any means and the only reason I gave it a 10 is to counter the incompetent lemmings. Hawken is still in beta and not a finished product, but still, it's a fun experience.… Expand