I haven't played Distant Worlds for years. Does it still have extremely cheesy races and goods, humans-as-americans, eye cancer graphics, nonexistant AI, boring combat and the worst writing ever?
So it sounds like you only played the initial release. Which was subpar according to everyone (even the dev, I believe). Wow, things have changed.
AI - vastly improved 2 updates ago, and I know that it was further refined in Shadows and Universe is supposed to make it even better.
Combat - I don't find it boring. It is not the insane pacing and swarming of AI War, but I have played out some rather interesting, epic battles. As in any good strategy game (or life), most of the combat takes place beforehand when you design your ships, your battle lines, and your overall plan of attack (or defense.) The 'rush' comes in the last minute tactical changes you need to make when you discover that the enemy has planned for your torpedo-oriented strategy with distance-oriented ships, or the like.
Cheesy races - no more cheesy than most other space games I have played, far less cheesy than some. There is an excellent mod that greatly expands the races in the game with some rather fascinating and well-thought-out additions (doubling the default loadout, if I recall).
Humans - not just Americans, but white, upper middle class, male Americans of the 50s. Tall, square jawed, saviors of the world and masters of the Atom, come back to work on Madison avenue and convince . . . yes. the humans are still American, I suppose ;-) Of course, in the DW: Expanded mod, there is another "race" of humans, who have rebelled from the original stock. Might they carry on the dreams of the 60s or at least push back against the oppressive patriarchy? Who knows, play and find out.
Graphics - I never thought of them as eye cancer causing. No more so than AI-war's epileptic seizure-inducing graphics (seizures from awesomeness, of course).
Writing - meh. I can't speak to universe or shadows content. It was okay, fine in my playthroughs? Certainly not a strong suit.
The resources - again, a great mod that makes the 'trans-newtonian' resources into real elements from the periodic table and things that we can find here on earth. But do you make the same complaint about the Spice in Dune? Sure, some of them are unnecessarily silly, but it stands to reason that plants and animals on different planets would have different names than what we are used to.
So, sorry you had a negative experience, but, yeah, I think things have improved since you last played.
