After playing Alien Armageddon some more I can confidently say that Bombshell is definitely the weakest playable character. Almost everything she has in her arsenal sucks until you feed her enough upgrades and she has no unique properties to fall back on. I personally find her turrets to be the most pronounced example of this. The default turrets do basically nothing, only slightly tickle the enemies, upgraded rocket turrets destroy themselves before they can inflict any serious damage on the enemies due to the splash damage of their rockets. Only after you purchase the rocket upgrade for the turrets and no friendly fire perk you begin to get any worth out of them, before that you practically have no slot six weapon, and what’s even worse the turrets cost two ammo to deploy, yet the ammo pick up gives you the usual five ammo.
Earlier I wrote that I found Deanova to be underwhelming, but later on I found that to not be the case, and now I think that playing her is almost like typing “God” in the console. Between her invisibility, leeching shotgun and blades auto deflect I stay at overhealth and overshield nearly 100% of time, while enemies can’t fight back properly, yes she’s more complicated to play than the other characters, but it pays off.
Overall Duke and Mando have the most firepower and are straightforward to play, with Duke requiring more upgrades to reach his peak. Deanova is the most durable and most complicated character to play; she has a big selection of unique tools in her arsenal. Wes is a hybrid between Deanova and Duke/Mando. Bombshell is the underdog.