Yes, Iron Brigade is least the tower defense game with tower defense elements i’ve ever played.
I liked the game because i like mechs, but the tower defense elements were just token as they were COMPLETELY useless and the mechs that focused on them were COMPLETELY useless compared to the heavy fighter ones.
Iron brigade is basically a light mech sim with minimal tower defense elements. Still, i liked it and was very happy when it came to PC. It is funny you bring this game up as sanctum 2 also reminded me of it. The main difference is i found the shooting (or mech’ing i guess?) in iron brigade a hell of a lot better than sanctum 2’s shooting.
I agree though. I can understand how if you prefer more shooter in your tower defense and less tower defense, sanctum 2’s changes might be positive. I do think that sanctum 2 improved on the shooting a bit and making enemies attack you instead of just knocking you back makes things more hectic.
Having many maps where towers are ineffective, many enemies that are nearly immune to towers and generally marginalizing the effectiveness of towers even after this latest patch all lead to more focus on shooting which could be positive depending on the player’s tastes.
Sadly, i am more of a tower defense fan than a shooter fan. For me, i like the move to add new sub genres to the tower defense genre, but games like sanctum 2 move a little too far outside the core gameplay of the genre for me to really enjoy.