Hawken Beta

I received an invite for the Hawken closed beta so I thought I would check it out.
In case you don't know Hawken is a "mech" based shooter that will be available free-2-play later this year. 
I'm just going to make this quick here.
Graphics:  Really good, much better than most free-2-play titles I've tried.
Game play:  There are several modes in Hawken and I was not able to try them all since there are issues with joining servers in the beta.  I was able to play death match, team death mach, and one round of siege.  The game mechanics of Hawken make regular death match just feel kind of silly.  From my experience you are able to take down one mech in a toe to toe duel and by that time your mech is messed up enough that you can survive another fight unless you repair.  There is also a good chance that your weapons will have over heated in the dog fight and you wont be able to battle till they cool off.  In case you haven't figured it out this is the difficulty with standard free for all death match games you basically bust one mech and then get popped yourself.
Team death match is a mixed bag because if you can get people you don't know to work together you are golden but if you are on a team that is going solo everywhere its not going to go well for you.
I was confused about the siege match I played since there really isn't a tutorial for the game or tips or any guides.  I was able to figure out that you need to collect energy and return it to your base to get a warship.  The attack/defense part of it was confusing.  I think you need to defend your anti air artillery while collection energy to fuel your battleship while destroying the enemy anti air artillery.  That's my guess.  I didn't accomplish much besides collecting some energy and defending the base.  I got stomped pretty good trying to attack with my brute.
So far Hawken is a pretty good game but I'm looking forward to the bugs getting ironed out.  We'll see how she looks when release time rolls around.