This is one of the finest games in the RTS genre, successfully defining and refining an excellent balance of features and accessibility that would be copied by dozens of 4X developers up to the present day.

This game has everything you need from a sci-fi RTS:
- A decent research tree (three competing branches)
- Customisable ship designs (without being too overwhelming)
- Colony management, customise your planets with ease to focus on taxes, production, research, defenses etc.
- Engaging tactical battles (without unnecessary complexity)
- Meaningful diplomacy options, combined with meaningful espionage possibilities.
- Unique factions with reasonably balanced Asymmetry.
- Interesting ships-and-tanks market not seen in many other games.

The only downsides at the moment are:
- Steam version does not come with a manual, meaning you will probably spend the first 10 minutes of a game reading through the research panel to find out what each thing does, or checking online for keyboard commands.
- undocumented mouse control can hinder play (hit ALT to toggle "attack/merge" mouse behaviour on galaxy map)
- Minor balance issues that make some units a bit of a dead-end investment (Space Bases, "Mobile Base", planetary guns).

To top off all the positives, this game is well optimised. The tactical battles and colonies are rendered in full 3D, with decent effects, and yet still runs perfectly on my i3, 3GB RAM laptop from 2009. I have yet to test the multiplayer but It's something I've been looking forward to for nearly a decade!

Top game, highly recommend for any fans of 4X / sci-fi RTS.