Granted, the Ares HVAR lacks AP but is has a deep ammo bin for a AR, lots of built in RC and good accuracy. Not the best AR available but IMHO it's certainly not terrible.
See, I thought that too - "well, trade some damage for free RC..." Then I realized it has 1 more RC than an Alpha (not counting the shock pad that you can give to the Alpha, too), and it can't take barrel accessories - so it will have LESS RC than the Alpha due to lack of Gas Vent. And it holds 8 more rounds of ammo than the Alpha.
Whether I like it or not, the Alpha is the gold standard that my players are going to be comparing it to (especially since it's the same availability and pretty much the same cost). And compared to that, we might as well call it the "Excalibur".
I think that I'm just going to house-rule the 4e Supermachinegun rules back on (and the 15rd burst rule for the minigun, since the one player who has one likes that part of it).