I did understand that the Metal Gear series of games was very possible what you were talking about. However, since it was badly communicated, I chose to instead actually respond to the alternative. Why the gear should not be metal, in contrast to the Metal Gear games, is something I actually know something about
As a further note, I don't mind at all if people compare what I do to one of their favourite ip's. In fact, that is really flattering. Even if I don't personally enjoy or care much about it, I still enjoy to be compared to a production with much larger resources, skill and knowledge than I possess. But it's probably almost always a misstake to assume that someone will enjoy and know something as intimately as oneself just because oneself likes it that much. It's kind of the same logic why most people don't want to get sent pictures of genitalia from random people.
This world has not been built by me, but by my client (see description). What I did was improve the graphic readability, distinction and functionality of the characters suits, but personally I enjoy your thoughts about both cybernetics and exoskeleton solutions. In fact that's what I like to do a lot when I draw my own stuff, and quite possibly if it had all been up to me I'd have thrown in at least a couple of prosthetic limbs in these designs hahahaha.