[Original Review]
This game will get better with time.. its a little rough early on, but once you get over the learning curve it grows on you.

[Updated Review]

I was wrong.. I was thinking this game would get massively better with time, but it is no X3.. not even close.

The major things I see:

1) The AI is absolutely useless.. its terrible.
2) The engine optimization is poor.. there seems to be some major concurrency issues in the coding. The GUI is constantly freezing though the resource utilizations are all low. In Borderless Windowed - if you swap to a background task the game hangs for several minutes.
3) Autosave - This is the longest autosave ever.. the game hangs and you wait..
4) Economy - What Economy? The late game economy is stagnant at best.
5) Overall Gameloop - The loop is 'ok' - its not great and ends up being alot of 'waiting' doing nothing. It would be great if some of the activities were actually fun.. but they're not. Lockboxes are cute the first time, but get old quick. There's really just not enough fun content and the battles are not that rewarding.

This one seems to have lost the luster that was contained in X3.. it feels cheap, poorly coded and empty.

[Updated Review - May 2024]

The game has improved quite a bit - its back to where the X3 series is equivalent, but with far better graphics.

Alot of the previous issues in design are still there, but the overall gameplay has improved significantly, especially around the AI.

[Original Review] This game will get better with time.. its a little rough early on, but once you get over the learning curve it grows on you. [Updated Review] I was wrong.. I was thinking this game would get massively better with time, but it is no X3.. not even close. The major things I see: 1) The AI is absolutely useless.. its terrible. 2) The engine optimization is poor.. there seems to be some major concurrency issues in the coding. The GUI is constantly freezing though the resource utilizations are all low. In Borderless Windowed - if you swap to a background task the game hangs for several minutes. 3) Autosave - This is the longest autosave ever.. the game hangs and you wait.. 4) Economy - What Economy? The late game economy is stagnant at best. 5) Overall Gameloop - The loop is 'ok' - its not great and ends up being alot of 'waiting' doing nothing. It would be great if some of the activities were actually fun.. but they're not. Lockboxes are cute the first time, but get old quick. There's really just not enough fun content and the battles are not that rewarding. This one seems to have lost the luster that was contained in X3.. it feels cheap, poorly coded and empty. [Updated Review - May 2024] The game has improved quite a bit - its back to where the X3 series is equivalent, but with far better graphics. Alot of the previous issues in design are still there, but the overall gameplay has improved significantly, especially around the AI.