Alpha Strike simplifies BattleTech quite a lot, both rules wise as well as the level of detail each 'Mech has. This allows for quicker games, and thus for larger forces to be used in the same time you would play a game of classic BattleTech.
Norman, a buddy of mine, is a quick fan of Alpha Strike; he presented it to us, but the rest of weren't as hooked. He still plays it regularly, according to him it starts to shine when you play objective based games, but only ever played it once.