'9'!!! for a game with average graphics and sounds, slow and boring gameplay and without campaign!
The worst part of this game is that it isn't fun. I was forcing myself to keep going, hoping I'd discover some aspect or angle that I had missed but after a few days I'm completely and totally disappointed.
After all, this game is pretty complex and different with routine RTS games and you should play 4 tutorials to learn it. I dislike the lack of an effective, informative tutorial. The tutorials aren't really helpful, because there is no audio assistance and to me (since English isn't my native language) reading the instructions was difficult.
After tutorials, there is an another surprise; NO CAMPAIGN. Yes, I know this game is more for LAN and Internet PvP but there are many good RTS games in market that present both campaign and multiplayer. I've seen gamespot slew some good games for their short or hard campaigns or for unattractive story. How could they give 9 score to this game now?!
The graphics are not that impressive and all environments look dark and dull. Graphics are 2D all the way and it's ridiculous in 2008. To view units in all of their 3D rendered glory, you have to zoom in so far you can't even see what they are shooting at or what is shooting at them. Music is very basic and nothing special. The in-game music is quite well for this kind of game but it is monotonous. Sound effects like unit sounds also are simple.
In this game, the scale is just so large that you loose all of the fun details. I feel sorry for those graphic artists who put in so much time creating all of those great units because when you play you have to zoom out so far to get a grasp of the battlefield that you are just playing with dots!
It's impossible to spend more than 30 seconds zoomed in actually looking at your units, I ended up playing 50 percent of the game zoomed out, moving around little icons on a 2D battlefield.
As a good thing, gameplay runs smoothly. The game has 3 races and many different units but the whole idea is boring: fly from one planet to another, conquer it, put some buildings on it, fly to the next planet and begin once again. As a whole, there's no depth, no variety, no characters, and no storyline to keep your interest.
Everything in this game is pathetically slow. units and structures build slowly, units move slowly, battles also are slow and boring. 5 battleships take 30 seconds to destroy a single frigate. Because it's much easier to defend your empire than to attack, almost always you'll finish all your research and upgrade all your planets before you'll make a move on an enemy. Almost infinite supply of resources means that the game will last until someone quits.
Overall, There are still so many positive reviews that I still wonder what the hell... what is it that others like so much about it? did I miss a point somewhere? I don't know. If you disagree with my opinion and think like I've overlooked some serious traits and facts, feel free to message me and I'll try to reflect on your opinion in this review.