the mech commander games are real time tactical games where you command squads of customized mechs in challenging, unique missions. the only thing you really need to be good at it is to be aware of which weapons are effective, and what kind of mechs to use for each mission. it's not a clickfest like most rts's, you just need to know how to use waypoints and may have to try a mission a few times to figure out what is needed for it.
I liked the mechwarrior games too, 2, 3 and 4 are all good and I think there's still an active multiplayer community for mw4... you can even download it and all its expansions for free. I don't know if you can get 2 and 3 for free but you can just get them on amazon if not.
in mw2 the nova was OP because it could carry so much energy weapons at such a light tonnage... or was it just the AI sucked so everything was OP... I liked taking a warhawk with 8 machine guns and just sawing the legs off of everything at close range. in mw4 they reintroduced a much bigger novacat with a different look... and because of the heat demands of energy weps it was not OP. mw4 was a classic game but I haven't really played it much in 10 years.