The obvious solution here would be to not play a new game plus.
These kinds of things take me out of the games story. So ol boys flew across the galaxy to lethe, get shot down, have what looks to be a company size element of Marines going by the way they are structuring squads and the size of the hypersleep bay, and somehow the ONLY Marines fit for combat duty are the most basic privates that have to attain experience points by going on life and death missions to unlock ammo and gear pouches, and know that their ship has extended magazines for them to use.
Weirder still is that they gain all this experience as riflemen and THEN change classes to something they have no experience in. It makes okay sense as a gameplay mechanic, but no sense storyline wise.
The deathclock is a story element, not a gameplay one, so it doesn't bother me.
Just having your Marines start out as someone with experience who survived the crash is better. You've already earned your stripes on the initial playthrough.
