This is the most highly addictive stretagy game i've ever played!
The graphics are good, granted their isn't much to see so they just improved whats there. The sound is good but after 15 minutes withen the game you won't notice it because your soo immersed into it.
There is a huge replay value because you may do the same misssions over and over again but the game uses new maps so you may never know where everything is or how good is your starting planet.
The different races also offer huge customisation for ship designs. Think of Sid Meier's Alpha Century in space. You can customise the ships and add new designs to make it look like your dream ship (Yes, we are also talking about the Enterprise here).
You can custom make the races and you can download mods on their website or if you want to make your hands dirty you can download the mod that allows you to make everything from scratch.
Although you can conquer through technology, alliance, conquest, or culture victorys it takes a while to conquer planets because you need to research the troops tech. This can be annoying because it takes a while to get there and time is of the essence.
It may take a while to get used to this game but it offers a tutorial and a manuel that offers very good information all about the AI and everything else. Not to mention a huge graph that displays all the technology so you can plan ahead on what you want.
There is also not allot of micro-management here. This means that you don't have to do more than generally run your empire. You can assign "governors" to do the general things on your colonies and ships. Also set up rally points so ships go to location B upon completion.
Even though this game does not have multiplayer there is the Metaverse with rules which allows you to, on completion, send the scores online on the website so everyone can see how good or evil are you.
This game has the best AI i've ever seen (the AI does'nt "cheat" as well), a long, long, long, long, etc. replayablity that truly makes the 59 dollars worth it and more, good graphics and sound, medium learning curve to some people and an overall brilliant game.