Hands down my favourite 4X, don't listen to the 'Thumbs down' reviews; the game is extremely rich and replayable and while it has a steep learning curve there are options to make the games easier and more adaptable to fully learn its mechanics.

The games replayability is its versatility in world generation, societies and varying difficulties. You can go from a barren planet where water is more valuable than oil to rich alien worlds with Kaiju sized monsters that require entire mid game armies to deal with. When you get a grasp of this game, the richness of it will allure you. I've frankly taught friends of mine how to play the game within a 6 hour period and they were entranced.

For a new player, I'll give some advice
-Planet generation is essential; always go for medial numbers around 1 for gravity and atmosphere, recommend starting on a earth-like planet (yellow G4 sun iirc) with 1m fauna.
-Recommend going for populous worlds for scrap, artifacts can be gamechanging too (triangle on map)
-Always focus on metal production first (via scrap facilities if possible, there is option on easier difficulties to start with a metal mine too) before industry, industry is a pillar of this game.

That's honestly really it; Democratic/Governance/Mind is an easy straightforward and newbie friendly governance system.