Upfront my view on the game vacillating between "luke-warm" and "good".
You dislike a game. What is the first thing you do now?
A) Play another game which you enjoy.
Bitch about it in a forum. (x)
Well..there is some value to bringing things to a forum.
(1) If it is done constructively it may help create "critical mass" to help guide the developers for the future (patches, expansions etc). For the record I don't think the OP did much to constructively critique the game.
If I may expand on one thing the OP wrote:
Yeah it looks pretty but the game play is extremely slow and limited.
Yes...graphics are cool (agree) and the engine runs smooth (at least on my CPU). If by game play being limited (s)he means: there are only 3 races, building options are maximum of say 12(?), and ships are limited to 13...I would agree. Take a look at other "strategy games" and these numbers are on the low side (CIV IV = dozen+ races, units are in the 30s, buildings are in the 30s). To the games credit the races have semi-completely independent tracts of research and ships...more similar to say HOMM III-V in this manner.
Game is also missing things like "random events" (supernovas?, blackholes?, Sabatoge, Infected space pony meat, etc), the "eXplore" function is just find out what is out there...no real benefits for finding space debris (see GAL CIV II), etc etc.
(2) Ranting on a board also allows others who have not purchased the game get additional "mini-reviews" before deciding to purchase.
Personally, I purchased the game because of the rave reviews it got from pcgameworld, etc. I also looked at the board and at the time there were much less "rants" and have noticed the moderators will remove/lock them occasionally. I think part of my "luke-warmness" of the game is because expectations were so high from reviews like 93% of 4.5 of 5 stars.
