Okay, I've had more time to play around with 0.460 and prepare a more complete review.
Overview
I played the campaign mode with randomly generated characters (to avoid my compulsive need to min/max). I played each character until they became unplayable due to loss of only Mecha or permanent injury without a replacement organ for sale at the reviving hospital.
Character creation
As I was playing random characters, I didn't have much input in this process, but I did notice that the characters generated felt like clones. All of them had Dodge 5, and Mecha Piloting 5, with a Conversation, the mecha Skills and 2 or 3 combat skills. The job skills were almost always at one (a cyberdoc had cybertech 1 and medicine 1) which seems a little odd. I also noticed that the random character generator rarely pushes a physical stat to 15, the optimal level, but will push Kn and Ch to 17 or higher, costing you points in other stats. Since the skill set a random character gets is pretty stable, the initially available talents tend to include the Mecha piloting ones with savant and idealist blood, and maybe a few more. I found this problematic in combat as I have always been a fan of Stunt Driving which is rarely an option.
Equipping your character
As with GH1, a starting character has way too much money to spend on personal scale gear, but no option to spend it on Mecha gear. From start, almost any character can deck themselves out with one of the best armors available (SkinSuit, Encounter Suit, or Combat if you are luck) and the best weapons for Scale 0. However, there are never any Scale 2 weapons or armor available and any scale 2 equipment that is available uses more slots than your starting Mecha has and will require a mecha engineering roll to install. Some of the gear's legalities seem a little off as well. Arguably the best small arms weapon, the Laser Rifle, has legality 0, making it available everywhere, but almost all of the (inferior) ballistic weapons have a legality of 5 or higher. All-in-all I would say that at least 50% of the armor and 75% of the weapons are useless because the player always has enough money to buy better.
Main Story
In general, the many story worked for me. In around 20 starts, I got 2 A# plot deadends. The missions weren't too hard; though the rewards were a touch high ($40k when normal missions paid $3k).
Non-story fixed missions
Once again, in general the fixed story missions like Adrianna's and Faski's rat problems and the like worked okay, though when asked to clear rats out of a basement, fighting only 1 rat and a dozen assorted other beasties seems odd. As with the main story, rewards seemed high for what was often a trivial task.
Dynamic missions
Dynamic missions were a bit frustrating in the beginning. Everyone talks about how x is offering a mission, but when you call him, he pretends like he doesn't know what you are talking about. Eventually you win enough battles that you have the renown to get more missions, but it is aggravating at first.
Mecha Combat
Space combat is like jousting, which is realistic, if not horribly riveting. Once enough mecha get involved the battle turns into a melee, which is a lot more interesting. BV weapons rule. Ironically, the Wraith's vulcan cannon is probably the most powerful early game weapon. Terrain battles work well, and are fun, aside from the occasional poor placement of mecha (requiring them to immediately walk off a mountain, or fly off the map).
Personal Combat
The personal combat system needs some work. Often, I would run into albino alligators on the second floor of my first dungeon. Many monsters could score an easy kill through poison, since the poison antidote is fairly rare and medicine doesn't work too well against it. Software is as much of a liability in combat as an asset, as it sucks up massive amount of MP in a short period of time to allow you to score massive crits on doors and rats. Overall, I think the problem is a too fast escalation of weapons and monsters on the personal scale. Since weapons are cheap, a player can quickly outfit himself with the best money can buy from the start. Therefore, the monsters need to be hard immediately to pose a threat, which means quick death for a low skill player.
That's all I can think of for now. I post again if I left anything out.
