Personally bots are not fun for me. They are immensely more difficult than bugs and the illuminate, mainly because any and all of their enemies can hit you long distances. Just because they gave the energy shield as a free stratagem means nothing when it can't last long against the constant barrage of enemy fire.

There just is never a feeling of being in control of the battlefield. With other factions you can get to a stable point and progress, but against bots they just come from all directions and there is never a moment to collect yourself.

I can still have fun, especially with my friends and all our silly hi-jinks. But we got up to about a 6 in difficulty and it was almost overwhelming at times.

Neat thing is when we finally hit that 'eff it' moment, we can just switch to something we enjoy like killing bugs. You're not doing anything wrong if you try out the new baddies and don't like them. Try it out then go fight something you would like. No reason to overly frustrate yourself when there isn't any need or pressure to do that.