My writeup on ES.



TLDR version: UI and graphics are good, but the game systems and design are a let down - there's not much new here for the 4x enthusiast, and then new bit doesn't work so well. Wasn't worth the purchase now, doubt it will be in 3 months.



The Good

The graphics are quite attractive. Ships look good, well modelled. Planets are quite nice. The UI, while it still has some rough edges, is credible.



All the bits are here, or at least the skeleton of them. Research tree, big randomly generated galaxies, heroes, 'invasions' diplomacy, trade, ship customization.



Lore for the universe is quite nice. I'd hope more in the way of events that support this lore comes in though.



The Bad

Battles look pretty, and seem awesome at first, but I quickly found them unegaging and boring. The battle card system could have been cool, but I end up using the same combos over and over (maybe not in MP, but I've only played vs AI). Compared to MOO2, or Gratuitous Space Battles, you don't 'feel' the fights, but they still take time, unlike GalCiv which makes it fast and abstract. I wish the battlecards didn't feel so dumb too, the early ones feel like 'huh, how do I always manage to get a saboteur on their ship' sort of ass-pull, and the later ones feel like magic powers. Plus they're just number mods, yet again not engaging. No grand ship maneuvers here.



Further, I don't feel the ship upgrades. Ship customization is just a numbers game. Big let down compared to MOO2. Even getting a new ship type doesn't feel that good - the differences aren't that big. Start to end game, you go from a ship that's sized/worth about 1x, to one that's a 4x - not exactly fighter to death star range here.



Planet economics are similarly boring. Because planet stats get agglomerated, Inever really feel like I'm specializing a planet/system. I just build the same set of stuff in all locations. Except for the upgrades that are useless in some systems that just clutter up the build UI. I suppose once you hit true end-game, you could terraform a whole system into a role, but there's no incentive to do so - every system will have all the production, science, and economic boosters, and there's no reason to make one system science spec'd, and another build spec'd.



The Ugly

The game has no new thinking here, besides the battle card system (which has promise but falls short). And it doesn't look like anything more than content and feature finishing, and balancing till launch



The biggest disappointment is that no thought has been given to fix the big problems that crop up with 4x games. One problem is the typical 'game less than 1/3rd over, but already decided except the mop up'. This game has this problem is spades, the game is really decided by your first clash with another empire, and the rest is just extermination.



Another problem, stemming from the above, is the whole, 'boring end game mop up'. There are multiple victory conditions that in theory would help with this, but ultimately they're all the same - biggest empire will win, you won't see a small empire with good tech, or one that'll win on production, or score, so you just grind down the other empires - or get bored and rush one of the other conditions, regardless it will not be satisfying, the juice was squeezed from the game in the first 40 turns.



The last big problem is the 'giant battle ball of doom'. Really you'll have one, maybe two big admiral-led fleets, and that'll be enough to wander around and crush the resistance. No elegant maneuvering needed, no need to defend in depth, no need to think about what you're doing other than reinforcing these fleets and crushing the enemies wherever you find them. It would be silly to do anything else, given the huge bonus an admiral gives you, and the lack of need to defend a planet - you'll have many turns to come to the aid of any system worth it, more than enough time to move a fleet across the galaxy.