Has a lot going for it, but difficult to navigate and sometimes outright strange - and not in a good way.
Sadly as I played more and more problems seemed to crop up that made game play annoying at times.
All-in-all this is a decent game. The UI is intuitive, the empire management is simple and efficient. I could understand most things without having to go to the manual or google, and the tutorial shows what you need to know for a good start.
Fleet management and movement is also simple.
Problems on the other hand range from the tiny things to the baffling ones.
First of all, clicking on things can prove to be a challenge by itself. Once you have a few systems under your control, you'll be forced to zoom out to see everything you need to, but the game only registers clicks that are exactly on the star which is just a few pixel spot at this point. Same goes with fleets, but even worse as sometimes even a spot on click will not select them.
The research mechanic is well thought out, with many alternative ways to go on, but this also makes it chaotic. Add to this that the techs all have great scientific names that only loosely correlate to what they actually do, and you have a research screen where finding a tech you want is nigh impossible. There is a search option but it doesn't seem to find much. If you want something that would have X effect your best bet is to exit the game and check the wiki.
Sometimes enemy fleets would move on the screen when it's not their turn, influence areas from other empires would block fleet movements in a way that makes it impossible to colonize a planet which for them is impossible to get to.
The general difficulty is also mind blowing. On standard I was consistently last in every possible thing regardless what I did. Pirates would come by turn 30 (very early) and invade entire worlds (not something you'd expect pirates to do).
The races are all neatly done and diverse, but sometimes it feels like the mechanics were only half finished. For example playing the "Cravers", a race that is supposed to devour worlds and move on - so one would think that expanding all the time would be a good thing - it turns out they build up negative moral for over-expanding just like any other race. When I first saw that I though it was just some bug left in, but apparently this is how it's supposed to work.
Talking about races, you can pretty much design your own a la MoO2, which is always a great thing to see in a 4x game.
You get heroes who can gain levels and then level them up the way you want. This part is neat and having a good hero in the right place actually makes a difference in battle outcomes as well as construction.
Speaking of battles, you don't actually control your fleet, instead play cards that are abilities or behavioral orders that your fleet will follow in the next battle phase (there are three phases). It's an interesting mechanic and as your hero gains levels you can unlock better and more expensive cards for him to use.
Planets have special modifiers and a few important strategic resources that you'll need to fight for. Very nice mechanic for a 4x and implemented quite well.
A decent game but it has many strange quirks that wmight cause nerdrage and somehow has some priorities screwed up. Pirates and planet moral shouldn't be your top problems in a game like this.
I can recommend it for 4x enthusiasts and new players alike, though if you're not a hardcore strategist expect to be crushed often and violently.