@speed2 Tried this mission in a CO_Op with my GF.
All I can say is ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?????????
Ok. So. Trying to get her into the game, she is new to RTS but loves me very much 
So we try on medium difficulty and we get pwned by too many air drops. Also, as I was pumping out units and giving them to her to play with - she blew up both t2 mass extractors.
Ok, new game, we get both t2 mexes, I am reclaiming the air drops, and we are SLOOOWWWLLYYY advancing bit by bit...playing for 1 hour, manage to kill the second base in the corner, only to kill the -what I so foolishly thought was the main base- and discover that, after painstakingly playing for 2 hours with shitty t1 units, we get yet another part of the map and yet another mission. WTF?
This is the second Aeon mission.
In the first one, a new player had to make a mass extractor, pgen and 3 tanks.
In the second mission a player has to:
-secure all the parts of the island with aa to prevent air drops from owning them.
-deal with constant bomber intrusions
-manage to not kill, but grab, t2 mexes
-reclaim wrecks cause the mass is abysmal
-deal with patroling ships and invasion by a ton of ships right smack in the middle of his eco base
-kill a cruiser with very specific units, torp bombers (no other can really do the trick)
-clear out the base to the right AND fortify and hold it because...well, bombers and air transports and naval attacks...
-and after all that the map expands to make you upgrade all your mexes to t2, make t2 pds, to defend from even more attacks by superior technology which you have your shit t1 units to counter if they are away from the base
-to manage to snipe the ACU.
Did I get all that right?
Well how the fuck is a noob gonna do that, when they still barely has any clue why 1 tank has only a blue circle around it and another a red one???
They have no idea what reclaiming wrecks is, making engis patrol in drop zones, that flak turrets can be made on water so you can focus on frigates...or that freakin Auroras can hover and be used to cross water.
Really man...really. Compare that mission to the 2.nd mission of the UEF. You can finish 3 UEF missions in the time it takes to do the 1 Aeon's. Is that by design or...what the hell happened?
Don't get me wrong, it's a challenging mission...but it SHOULD NOT BE. Not for a 2.nd Aeon mission.