Played it. Wasn't that impressed.
I just started a game with the default settings, then it took me through (what I consider) a fairly lengthy tutorial on all the details. Took me about 15 min to get the gist of things, then I started going around colonizing planets.
Designed my own offensive ship. Set my scouts to auto-explore, then kind of just waited around for awhile. Literally after 50 turns, I still hadn't entered a single battle, which is just sad. Maybe I simply don't have the patience for 4X games.
I finally entered a battle and was really let down. The entire thing was like a rollercoaster ride; you just watch the action but have basically no control over what happens. The "card" aspect I thought was somewhat of a joke. It's like deciding a battle based on a more complex form of Rock-Paper-Scissors or whatever.
It's obvious that the developers have a lot of passion and put a ton of work into this game, but it's just not my cup of tea. Too much planning and work for too little action or interest. It's like a worse form of Civilization V, in space.