Have been starved for so long for a good 4x game, Endless Space is a tasty treat.
The GUI is very user friendly, looks good, and give good info at a glance. It is well thought out, for the most part that is, and while most of the icons and fonts are too small to read without binoculars, the over all look and feel of it is above average. 8 or of 10 IMHO for GUI.
The Tech tree is another wonderful concept. Instead of having A leads to B leads to C - linear tech advancement Endless Space leaves it open ended. Most techs give you two rewards for completing research and the time it takes to research is ideal for the pace of the game. 8 out of 10
Ship design is good, but a bit under finished I believe. While it is intuitive it lacks depth and detail info. I might have missed it but I was unable to find how the changes I was making affected the over all balance of the design until combat. Needless to say, the AI handed me my arse a few times on a couple of my designs. 5 out of 10.
Combat is refreshing. I like the way that the developers of Endless Space have implemented it. While combat in general is mostly just you sitting there watching pretty cut scenes and hoping you played your cards right (literally as combat is all about picking cards) the range based combat system coupled with the a fore mentioned card concept, makes for an interesting element in combat game play. While generally speaking I like more combat control options, huge fleets, and massive battles, I accept what Endless space has to offer. 5 out of 10
Expansion and system exploration is well done. While I like to see the facilities I am playing on a planet and have the option to place them where I want, Endless Space's system is okay. A little less to micro-manage always makes for faster more robust game play but to be honest, it seemed a little dull to me in that regard. I do however love the ability to colonize planets within the same system simply by adding colonize planet to the build queue. 5 out of 10
There is no planet combat in this game. Your fleet take forever to take over a system and it does it completely in the back ground. 2 out of 10.
The concept and game implementation of Endless Space is quite fun. The game looks great, has good customization features for your empire, and has good re-playability.
The bad is no planetary combat, limited number of ships in combat (ala SOTS), limited scope and size of galaxy. (Huge is very small). And repetitive space combat. You'll end up just letting the game roll the dice so to speak for most space combat.
The really good, the game is fun to play. Has a very initiative GUI, good over all playability.
While Endless Space isn't anything new, it does take a new approach by combining elements from several other 4x brands and nicely incorporating them into a single game. Albeit the depth of Endless Space is more along the lines of Empire At War rather than that of the 4x Classic Standard Setting game play of Space Empires IV (V), it does have a good cross between Gal CIv, SOTS, and SINS. All in all a very enjoyable game with certain good re-playability qualities along the lines of Star Ruler and Distant Worlds..