They are landed with no ground vehicles, no artillery, and no heavy weaponry. This is very illogical from a military point of view. In addition thousands of spaceships circle above the planet so close that they ultimately crash into each other. But the strength of the movie is in the mobile infantry and its battles. Bugs the size of cars storm a mobile infantry base.
Fighting is within inches of the massive beasts.
Machine guns hurl out bullets as fast as they can but it isn't enough. Two and three soldiers shoot down bugs as they get within inches of them. This makes for a very impressive tooth and nail approach to warfare. The movie ends with humanity gaining the means technologically to destroy the enemy, and the audience withnesses what is to be interpreted as a slow human advance to victory. The movie placed Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie Howser fame into the position of being a prominent scientist.