I like a lot this game has to offer, but hate, hate, hate the mercenary system. As has been mentioned many times, you can't customize many aspects of the character, but you also have to listen to head canon breaking dialog. They don't just say, "Yes?" when you talk to them. They talk like zombies "what command do you have for this vessel?" and crap like that. So you basically can hire zombies.

I really wish they just let us create 3 additional characters at the outset and put them in the world. It wouldn't have taken that much work and if you choose a merc, you don't need great dialog. Just the bare bones is fine and a lot better than zombification. They could have sprinkled the custom characters into the game pretty easily (maybe one is left for dead somewhere and you heal them, one is waiting in prison, one is a wanderer who shows up when you camp, or something like that). It would have been soooo much better if we could freely spec the party.