So i bought this game based on a review over at Toms Hardware, and I'll tell ya, its really impressive game (and now for my opinion... it doesn't do this game justice i think). The review I read described it as a combination turn based and RTS game. I didn't quite understand how that was possible until i bought the game and played it. First off, the areas you play in are immence (solar systesm). The RTS portion is on the planet level of this. Basically this is like every other RTS, this is where you get your resources and build your structures. It differs in that you can only build as much as your planet can support. Further, each planet has 'paths' that can be taken to travel back and forth- the turn based portion of this. When you zoom out and look at the field your playin on, it immense. Jumping between systems takes alot of time, and thus the 'turn based' portion of this. You could literally play this game from the zoomed out view, and play it like a turn base if you wanted to.
Some of the things I like about this game.
-The way they implemented the ship system. You can build well over a few thousand ships if you wanted to, but the thing is you are charged an upkeep for them which is some percentage of your income. I find this really cool as you remove that 'hard cap' that most games have and literally get to pick how much you willing to pay for fleets.
-The depth. There is so much to research it isn't funny. For those who like to micromanage or those who love making their ships better (me) you will be in heaven here, there are just so many options to work with.
Now there are a few things that are draw backs. On normal speed it plays slow. for those who like turn based games, you may like this, but i found that for me to have an enjoyable expierence i had to up the speed up to fast. To add to that, even a fast paced game on the smaller maps takes at least 4 hours to play from beginning to end. I was playing a game on a medium map, I think i was up to almost 10 hours and was just starting to invade (granted i was playing on normal speed). This is both a detriment and an asset i think. The time it takes to play a game might be a turn off for web games, but for single player (or the lan type person) its nice to play something that lasts a long while... its quite satifactory to play it through for a few hours and watch your empire grow.
Another draw back is that there is no single player campaign, a slight negative, but the game itself is quite polished with no glaring issues (besides a ship or two that won't listen...).
I personally would recommend this game, it well worth it for the expirence.