Gav - Sins of a Solar Empire Demo, first impressions:

It's a cross between an RTS and Civ-ish 4X game (probably closer to something like Master Of Orion or Galactic Civilisations 4X-in-space than vanilla Civ). The research trees are quite large and resource gathering is by planet colonisation/development (like a 4X game). On the other hand, it's not turn based, and the pace feels relentless (like an RTS).

That said, the pace is actually quite slow in some ways - units take quite a long time to cross the map, making it a good deal more "strategic" than most RTS games, at least in terms of having to plan some way ahead to get forces into place.

It seems to have learned some good lessons from Supreme Commander (namely, Strategic Zoom) and more recent 4X games (lots of intricate detail, but kept under the hood with some degree of automation to avoid overwhelming people). Things seem to work pretty well, albeit with some learning curve, and I was kinda narked when the 90-minute time limit on the demo kicked in.

File under: I think I'll probably buy the full game someday.

linkage: Sins Of A Solar Empire