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RE: Why I Love Battletech (and Netflix's Outlaw King)
I don't have experience with Battletech, and I still haven't watched Outlaw King (although it's exactly my kind of movie) but I have played a trillion games and would develop relationships with mt team in games like XCom and would be devastated if I lost a favorite. I haven't played The Witcher or the like, but relationship building is a big part of those types of games, with no two players having the exact same experience.
You're absolutely right though, using realistic motivations is so much more compelling than simply, this is a goodie, this is a baddie, and if you can create a scenario where the player actually cares about decisions made, well, you've created something special.
I feel like MechWarrior hit me even deeper than something like X-Com. I'm generally a little bit of a perfectionist and hate losing units, but something about the depth of the world made the struggles more real. Of course, MechWarrior is a simulator (if that title really applies to piloting a futuristic giant robot), so there's the additional element of personal skill involved.
I think that the real problem is that writers like having villains who you can hate. That's not bad (boy, can you hate the Prince of Wales in Outlaw King), but the real trial is creating villains who are interesting. It requires an intersection of evil (or at least amorality, which you could argue is the same thing) and deeper motives, because just having evil or just having complex motives doesn't work by itself.