OK I am one of these old farts that have been playing computer games since PCs came out. Master of Orion and MOO 2 were great back in the day, but games have evolved and there are lots of 4X games out there. We still need that beer and pretzel 4X space game. Some are overly complicated like Stellaris and some overly simplified like the new version of MOO. I just re-tried Interstellar Space Genesis (lame title) looking to scratch that 4X itch, and I think it is a worthy successor to MOO. You can feel it in the design choices, but it feels evolved from the original, like what MOO 3 should have been. I like the UI, once you get used to it it presents a lot of useful info at a glance. Ship design is simple. There is even a manual! How old school. For the price point, you could do a lot worse. A modern game based on and continuing an old classic. Get it, it's good.

A decent remake of MOO2, a bit simplified in some ways, like you don't need to repair ships and ships don't damage things nearby when exploding. Also instead of food there's a new concept of planetary engineering so your population can grow in any biome depending on your race preference without the need to transport food. Good UI. The AI is rather stupid and I'm still looking for a perfect difficulty balance. This was actually the main issue with MOO2 where you could easily win on one level and the next difficulty level seemed almost impossible. Here the difficulty could be fine-tuned more which is a plus.

Sadly in ISG the ship boarding mechanics is nerfed because neutron beam doesn't kill troops and marine pods tech is rather high in the tech tree

Definitely a thumbs up - IS:G is very clearly based on MOO2 but with some really nice additions and tweaks. The "remote exploration" mechanic can actually change the map, the leaders are more capable/interesting than vanilla MOO2, and there are more victory mechanics available - giving you more choice on how you want to play. Standard tech tree and ship design activities work well, too.

If you're looking for something casual that has you clicking "one more turn" - this is a good choice.