This is an interesting concept for a game . But it is kind of a niche game that will probably only appeal to a certain kind of gamer who likes detailed simulations and knowing exactly what is happening. More casual players will probably dislike it.

7/10 , could be better but a satisfying game for a certain kind of player.

It is a Gemstone period.

I am giving this game a massive thumbs up, but there is absolutely no point in my attempting to review it. One word describes the experience though. Immersive. To immerse yourself in it is the only way to 'get' it. Reading about it will not do it.
Thus, the below wall of text is not a review, but may explain the thumbs up.
I got lucky. I bought an early version of this game in the 1990's (BC3000). It was a time of my life when I needed to take some time out and basically lock myself away for a few weeks. I had this CD with this game on, a printed manual and a PC.
I read the manual, which is what you did in those days, and I spent those weeks figuring out the game and learning to enjoy it more and more. It sucked me in. There was absolutely nothing like it.
I got to the point where a screen full of numbers would translate in my mind to my troops running to defend my ship, I could see my engineers running down corridors to fix damage and effortlessly switch to a screen to check my inventory of parts while managing fighters and planning an escape strategy from a fight I had gotten into that I probably could not win, hoping I could pay for the parts I would need to fix her up. To give one example of a possible situation among many... many...
And it was all huge fun, totally immersive and challenging and rewarding. This game is massive. You can read other reviews of it there is so much to do, but there is that one thing you need. Immersion.
Eventually I had to spend my time doing other things, I forgot about the game, then one day I realised I had lost the CD, and there wasn't much hope of getting another copy. It was never a popular game.
Then sometime later I discovered that it was available for free on the internet. So I downloaded it and got it to run but realised that it would just eat my life so I had to leave it to one side.
Even more years later and I am so glad I have it on steam, well this evolved version of it which seems like an improvement from the few hours I have in it. I start it up and I am instantly back in the seat. The 'obtuse' interface makes internal logical sense and is intuitive once you really know the whole game, even 30 years later. It is like an old friend.
I start to play and then I realise, I am in that other universe. Immersed. if I don't step away from the computer, my friends and family may not see me for weeks.
There is no other game like this, that I know of, and I play a lot of games.
If this small sharing of my experience with the game makes you think it may be worth your time investing in it then I say go for it. You may find the most immersive gaming experience you ever had. Or you may find that is just doesn't click for you. It's certainly a risk. I am very glad I happened to give it the time it deserves, and I look forward to having the time to give to it again.... maybe... one day...
Also, it runs great on my linux laptop. It is not very demanding. If you find you lose control of the cursor or the screen glitches - alt-tabbing out and back fixes it for me. No other issues.

In a nutshell, this is a sandbox, free-roam, STARSHIP simulator.
You can do scenarios/missions, if that is your cup of tea.
But you can go off and do whatever you want and that freedom the game offers can feel overwhelming.

KEEP in mind, this IS AN OLD GAME. Another point: this game is an indie game. No big studio behind it, but as an indie game, like many indie games, it tries to do something original and outside the "generic" genre of games we have to pick from all too often. But this game, specifically, *to-date*, there are very few games that yet to come anywhere close to what it has accomplished.

Did I mention this is an old game? It's also a very complicated game. There is a very helpful tutorial and manual.
I put a lot of emphasis on the word SIMULATOR. This is not Wing Commander or Freelancer.
This is like Jane's F-15 or Falcon 3.0 type overly-complicated simulator games back in the day.

Any fan of the prior games will feel at home if they had mastered the controls.
The controls take getting used to, but the GUI/mouse interface let's you do most things from the HUD alone now.
You can mouse to the shields to raise lower, or partially, or mouse to the MFD displays and toggle various modes if you don't want to use the Hot-Keys.

What do you do this in this game? Whatever you want. Pick a "career type" which pretty much establishes what ships you can opt to start out with and where and who your enemies will be; and then launch into space.
You micromanage your crew, ship, supplies, but once you get the hang of the controls, you'll appreciate it, there is a lot you can do and a lot of you can keep track of and you might be surprised.

Remember in Star Trek, the captain might want to take a shuttle down to a planet to explore and take some bridge crew or officers or whoever with him?

YOU CAN DO THAT.

You can make personnel report to a shuttle, leave your mothership, fly to some planet way over HERE or THERE, actually fly down to the surface. From there, you can deploy a mining drone, or go take one of your combat vehicles for a spin, or get out and go for a stroll. What to do on the planet? Not much, mining is important and useful. OR, you can go to a city or base and blow it up. The sheer fact you can do this in the game is great. The game doesn't have a fancy polish and I'm sure some will be offput by the execution of some of the features. This an old game, complicated, indie title, so it might feel clunky, shoddy, but it works (no CTDs for me so far). Some might not like transition to planets is not "seemless", but interestingly, the "surface engine" actually runs simultaneously with the "space engine"; activity on both happens in real-time, and is viewable (via TacOps).

Once you launch your ship for the first time, you might say: UH OK, now what.
This is no X, this is no Elite:Dangerous, but let's you still do a hell of alot more, and as such, the game leaves a lot open to the imagination.

PROS:
-Familiar controls for those fans of the series
-Great ship designs
-Lots of things to do, manage crew, track their movements, keep your ship supplied, manage craft...
-Tons of interface screens, TACOPS lets you play in a sort of RTS style, "big-picture-view" of things; when in doubt, use the TACOPS feature, it will become your friend.
-Land on planets, deploy vehicles, run around, mine, explore; there are bases and cities, mostly static or heavily defended if hostile
-AI-controlled NPC ships/craft roam the galaxy; empires operate with their own agenda
-Very detailed HUD, MFD's, if you are micromanager and want to know everything, this is it.
-Non-NPC spawning mode so newbies can tinker around with the game who otherwise might get GANKED out the door for the first time
-Improved graphics
-Space Combat feels streamlined, and its rewarding when your starship goes up against another and you blow them and their support ships to pieces
-The HUD display with MFDs you can pull up in FPS mode is awesome, can scan for all sorts of targets. This is the kind of detail I like in games.
-I found the AI more responsive in this incarnation. I ejected from my starship and my ship flew off. Went to TACOPS, ordered it me, and to halt. It responded very well. In maybe BC3K v1.0 or 2.0 it might ignore me and fly 1 billion km away (my bad for not preparing the AI a/p mode in advance, oops!).
-You can control just about everything with your mouse through the HUD because it is interactve (so you don't have to rely on hot-keys)
-As an older game, graphics performance is good even on lower end computers these days
-You'll have lots of great stories to tell others about your adventures/events that happen in the game (shut down launch bay power due to intruders on board, assigned marines to guard shuttles, intruder managed to fight them, steal a shuttle with injured marine trapped on board, I had to go chase after to recover it and rescue them)
-IT'S FREE! (*update*: not anymore, but it's low-price, and still worth it).

CONS:
-Can't re-bind keys, control customization is limited
-You'll need to study the controls/features, require some patience
-Controls will take non-veterans of the series sometime to master (not that hard ones you get used to it)
-I miss from BC:M being able to walk on the hull of any space object (Star Trek: First Contact-style)
-Intruders beaming aboard with shields up still a random nusiance.
-BIGGEST GRIPE: Jumping to a target, especially star bases, leaves you too far away, ships fly too slow, and there is no afterburner/turbo boost mode like in the past versions of the game---sorely needed so you don't spend too long trying to cover that last stretch like a turtle. Mainly an issue with stations. There is a cheat option that lets you go beyond your ship's limits and can be used as a quasi-afterburner mode though.
-It shows its age, not really a problem for me, but the planet graphics seemed to be the weak link, had to fly almost touching the ground just to start seeing trees, horizon looks messed up, and didn't see any graphics options to increase view distance
-FPS was rather glitchy when near 3D objects, some areas lack polish (not Polish)
-This game will fry the brain of anyone with ADD.
-No real interaction with NPC ships or "empires", most is trading on stations

It's sort of like a combination of Evochron:Mercenary and X, not nearly as polished but more in-depth; you can do a 100x more things. Ultimately, other games don't come close to the same versatile free-form gameplay and with so many options. There is a trade-off and with UC:CE because it tries to do it all and give the players greater control/options, there is criticism of the execution.

I expect a good number of people will say "this let's you do SO MUCH but I only wish it was implemented better". My opinion is this: I think space-sim fans want a game where you can do *ANYTHING/EVERYTHING*. The BC/UC series is the only game in existence that actually comes close to touching that goal, but it's just not done in the way some would have hoped, so they actually get...angry over it. "OMG IF YOU ONLY HAD..."

I can understand the frustration but it's not fair to attack this indie game/developer while not lambasting everyone else who makes space-sims with the same criticism. Where's this criticism for the big studios with way larger budgets but put out dumbed-down sims?
"Planets are bare". Like Space Engineers? Evochron? UPDATE: Starfield?
In anycase UC is an ACQUIRED TASTE. This is a "long-form" game. It's high-level. One needs to prepare to take the time to explore all of it's features. It's not for everyone. That's fair.

The developer had a great vision and it wasn't to make "Call of Duty in Space" or another Wing Command clone. UC is unique, and for that reason it has been around a long time and still has a supportive fanbase through the years; AND the developer STILL works to support his vision, updating/building upon it all these years, and that is appreciated.

Had attempted to play this back in 2004. Good playthrough video here to see if this is your cup of tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTnozjPU_hs

It takes a certain kind of person to really love this game, and I seem to be one of them. It is a difficult game to play. The tutorial document is longer than the manual. EVERYTHING is an abbreviation. But dang, this game scratches an itch. If you invest the time, it will reward you. Do you want to invest the time? That's up to you.

RTFM or see the excellent video guides in the community section. Know your controls, your foes, your bros, and collect those cargo pods with materials in them before your allies do. Collect stuff, upgrade, repeat, Defend your side, defeat the other side, Get glorious medals and accolades. Grin.

IF A FOOL LIKE ME CAN LEARN THIS MASTERPIECE THEN ANYBODY CAN! Best space combat simulator ever thank you Derek Smart!

low price and fun

Hey Earth.
I'm a french fellow passenger on Earth.
I'm a "child" of the Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. My dream it's a travel space, is not possible !!!... But Mr Derek SMART do that !... Congratulations.
Universal Combat CE 2.0 is a good son of Battlecruiser Millénium Gold. Good idea for this games séries. Lovely ROAM free explorer! You know what? I am happy! One Billion Thanks Mr SMART, good luck for the future.

This game is a CapitalShip Simulator, crew and équipment are a maze management.
Two maners to play :
- "Tacops", you give orders to move the crew in the space or the planet...
- or at the first person to flight with a shuttle, a fighter, or to walk on the ground with a shotgun...

Marvelous space to visit solar system, proxima centauri, tau ceti, procyon, eridani system... on about ten parsecs !... It's cool the flight in the space and land on Africa, Mercury, Io, Phobos, Enceladus... to mining or explore like a dreamer.
The immersion space is strong, beautiful, amazing.
I like this nice game. :)))