It's basically CiV combined with Age of Empires in Space.
I really like the resource distribution, loyalties and planet detail as well.

Pay to win in its most glorious form. Obviously built off the UE 3 engine, it manages to utilize none of its power. For example, upgrades to ships past the first cost about 1k credits then scale to 3k and more. I gained about 800 credits a match which was misleading because it would tell me something different in the post game menu.

The first new ship cost 600k credits.

The gameplay felt very very bland, with there only being two factions and two modes (deathmatch and kill the enemy carrier). Also, for starting out with light fighters, the ships were clunky as hell and looked like they were made of clay. They didnt feel particularly fast (which is where their only strength lay) while also dying in a handful of shots.

The interface was also pretty bad in that it was nearly impossible to gauge your shots as your ship took up a large portion of the screen, and there was no hit indicator telling you if your shots were actually landing or not.

To sum up this game in a word: unforgiving.

It is essentially a team based point capture game that encourages teamwork, not through planning or thinking tactically about an objective, but more along the lines of what area the team is weakest in at that given point.

The frustration of the individual team members helps create a coherent fighting force, that can at least hold the critical point just long enough to win.

Communication is generally lax, but as with a public server in counterstrike, you can bet on the over ambitous, bloodthirsty nature of your fellow gamers to see you through.

The level design of the official maps clearly lean towards the highly competitive side, resulting in both fast paced rounds lasting 30 seconds, to meat grinder matches where you spend the next 30 minutes on one side of a chokepoint.

The mod community makes the game up though, and there are plenty of map types for all kinds of playstyles.

It's a good game, just utterly butal when starting.