Easily one of the best Space Strategy games made. Great for casual as well as hardcore RTS fans.
Played both the Demo and the Full game and I will say that the 1.4 patch does speed up the gameplay quite a bit. Revised Black Market and resource gathering makes it easier to get a good size fleet up and running fast. You can choose to hang back, defend your part of the solar system and horde resources, or you can build small fleets and conquer entire solar systems. And in large scale matches, once you and your allies have wiped out the competition, you can continue your game to wipe out the pirate threat, or declare war on your ally and erase him from the map.
The Different races all specialize in one area more than another, but they also are easy enough that you can play a match as any of them and still do well.
I am disappointed that there wasn't a story to go along with this game. It seems like they had a solid story building and then scrapped it for a multiplayer experience. Not a bad choice, but a campaign mode would have been nice, and probably is what holds this game back from being one of the best of all time.
Either way this game is highly recommended if you are a PC gamer and want a new twist on the RTS side. Plus the $$ is coming down everywhere I've looked.