HBS and Paradox are trying for BattleTech to be a bigger success than just amongst the core BT fanatics that played the TT for 15+ years. To do that they need to show the game to a wider population of gamers and this is what they are trying to do right now. If it is successful you, the hardcore fan, will surely reap the benefits in form of updates and DLC marked as "in success". In your place I would be keeping fingers crossed that this marketing strat succeeds, rather than moaning about it.
Having a good amount of content out pre-release is awesome for everybody. It's smart marketing from the publisher, it's good for consumers who can get a taste of what the game's like before dropping cash on it, and it provides a new field of content for streamers. I've been scouring the forums for the last few days and I don't think I've seen anyone complain once about streamers having access to the pre-release copies or streaming under embargo.
Absolutely none of those benefits are enhanced in any way by lifting the embargo this early, and this thread is a collection of the most common complaints felt by backers and other fans. The most convincing argument presented in this thread in favor of the embargo release was the idea that the early part of the game looks REALLY easy, and that could be a turn-off for non-BT fans coming from other turn-based strategy universes (XCOM being the largest of those). But I don't think the players who are deep enough into those games to crave difficulty are going to write a game off for not being hard enough in the first couple of missions, historically the training ground for new players. They just want to see the mechanics, the aesthetic, and be assured that there's some depth here to dig into (and the streams we've seen thus far have been great for demonstrating this game's depth).
Twitch is also largely about audience building, and the first streamer on the scene gets a huge edge in that department, regardless of skill, charisma, or ability to engage an audience (as evidence, I present the fact that in the early, early, own3d days of League of Legends even people like Grackis built up a following). So not only are PDX (I assume this was a PDX decision, though I'll readily admit I have no idea how these decisions get made nor by whom) creating a pain point for the die-hard backers who have been into the project for years, they're also picking favorites among the streaming community and deciding what the BT portal of Twitch is going to look like for the next few months. Which... kinda sucks.
EDIT: oops, didn't finish my thought in the 2nd paragraph. Fixed.
EDITx2: also I suck at typing
