Well, last nigth I just pre-ordered it, downloaded the alpha and then proceed to spend 5 hours playing.
It fuckings hooks you, that is for sure.
It kind of remind me of civilization but in space. It has the colonization, the building shit, the battles, the tech and so on.
Recommended if you like civilization kind of games. And it cost me like 18€ for the highest version so....cheap as hell.
And for an alpha, it's really stable. Didn't had any issues at all during my play. Balancing issues it's where it's at. And more content. Not enough types of ship to build, for example. They are all "multifunction" so there is not a hull especially designed for battle or defense. Guns and such there are also under developed I think, there is few of them and the tech tree only improves them instead of unlocking different ones. It will be good if some tech paths locked other parts, especially in the military tree with the bonuses of getting some specialty guns only available to you.
Diplomacy is kind of weak. The tech tree for it is not really understandable. I unlocked offer peace on it but I can't find the declare war one and have no idea if it has to be unlocked or not. Other races are kind of stupid, citing your "quick expansion" as a treat to them while they are expanding with you (???).
Also, one race declared war onto me, while another offer peace "Enemy of my enemy is my friend". We proceeded to wipe his tiny dominion out of space and they never tried to offer peace or anything, they just stood there diying and losing ships time after time.
Invading planets is also a pain in the ass. I had a planet to invade and no matter how many ships I used, the bar went down reeeeeally slow and there was no idication as why. I even created a fleet of 2 super-huge ships with only invasion weapons and it made no difference. In the end I just gave up.
Edit: Some screens.
WARNING! Steam compression below
State of the empire
Insufficient military(me?) for them to accept peace. They are the yellow player which only has 3 planets and it's in war against me and blue. Accept that peace son.
As in civilization, one turn arrives when your planets are full of everything so you just turn them out to produce ships for war of produce science all the time.