One of the best games I've ever played.

Be a ship captain. Master your ship and her crew. Surgically cripple ships you encounter.. or desperately jump to FTL while your shields are down your ship is on fire. The death of crewmates happens and their loss is felt. You are going to blow up. Learning how to leverage all the different ship types and configurations and crew is rewarding. The fact that enemy ships operate just like yours, with limited resources and crew, which you can exploit, makes you feel like a badass when you do stuff right. Winning is more than just bigger shooty numbers (although that always helps). A brilliant minimalist streamlined UI. Cool overlapping game mechanics. Brilliant tactical micromanagement. Avoid spiders.

I seriously personally recommend starting and staying on Easy for a while. Easy isn't easy. Win a few times before even considering Normal. Normal is very hard. Only 7% of players have the achievement for winning on Normal. Seriously. Hard is masochist. I continued playing on Easy for a long time and only selectively began playing on Normal much later.