So I've finished the game in around 23 hours on commander difficulty and I have no desire to play it again whatsoever. And here's why:

The game is quite addicting in the beginning. You are eager to enhance your space station, build new stronger spaceships, train your commanders, expand your resource mining facilities and so on. But as the time goes on, it gets repetetive and tiresome and by the time you defeat your first spire, you just want to be done with the game already. So why does it feel like a chore? Well, the progress you make in this game feels unrewarding and pointless and the game itself is as shallow as that blonde chick in second grade that helped you discover what boners are. It just painfully lacks in depth. The tech tree is useless, you gather anough resources to research everything by the time you are half through the game. Spaceship skills are meaningles, you will end up using random skills while engaging in combat just to save yourself the hassle of choosing between identical differently painted skills that make almost no difference to the outcome of the fight whatsoever. The expanding part of the game is atrocious. Enemy alien rifts keep spawning aliens in your territory just to annoy you and since the combat system is so dull, you just roll your eyes everytime a new rift spawns. It's not a challenge, it's an inconvenience that really hurts the experience. And higher difficulties promise higher hitting enemies that have more HP? Talk about artificial difficulty. I found that the only truly challanging part of the game is bugs, way too many of them for my comfort. The diplomatic part of the game is virtually non-existant. Looking through the achievements I learned that I could have become allies with other species, but I highly doubt it would have gotten any effect on the gameplay. The procedural generation of the map goes to the extent of resource locations changing places with each other and alien rifts spawning in different locations. Well, What about customization, such neat 4X title should surely deliver on that front, right? I'm sure you know the answer by now. So is there anything this game has to offer that could make up for all that? I honestly don't think so. It does have beautiful pixel art, enjoyable soundtrack and decent story with little bits of humour here and there, but that's about it. It would be a much better little comic or a short animated story than a video game.

tl;dr:

PROS:
+beautiful pixel art
+enjoyable soundtrack
+decent story
+chuckle-worthy humour

CONS:
-painfully shallow
-repetitive and tiresome
-artificial difficulty
-unrewarding grind and progress
-tech tree, skill and combat systems are dull and at times entirelly pointless
-diplomatic choices don't matter
-territory expansion is very limited
-procedural generation goes to the extent of making you feel like eating the same apple but with your left hand this time
-customization non-existant
-BUGS
-the game plays itself for you while constantly annoying you at the same time

Verdict: just play FTL

So I've finished the game in around 23 hours on commander difficulty and I have no desire to play it again whatsoever. And here's why: The game is quite addicting in the beginning. You are eager to enhance your space station, build new stronger spaceships, train your commanders, expand your resource mining facilities and so on. But as the time goes on, it gets repetetive and tiresome and by the time you defeat your first spire, you just want to be done with the game already. So why does it feel like a chore? Well, the progress you make in this game feels unrewarding and pointless and the game itself is as shallow as that blonde chick in second grade that helped you discover what boners are. It just painfully lacks in depth. The tech tree is useless, you gather anough resources to research everything by the time you are half through the game. Spaceship skills are meaningles, you will end up using random skills while engaging in combat just to save yourself the hassle of choosing between identical differently painted skills that make almost no difference to the outcome of the fight whatsoever. The expanding part of the game is atrocious. Enemy alien rifts keep spawning aliens in your territory just to annoy you and since the combat system is so dull, you just roll your eyes everytime a new rift spawns. It's not a challenge, it's an inconvenience that really hurts the experience. And higher difficulties promise higher hitting enemies that have more HP? Talk about artificial difficulty. I found that the only truly challanging part of the game is bugs, way too many of them for my comfort. The diplomatic part of the game is virtually non-existant. Looking through the achievements I learned that I could have become allies with other species, but I highly doubt it would have gotten any effect on the gameplay. The procedural generation of the map goes to the extent of resource locations changing places with each other and alien rifts spawning in different locations. Well, What about customization, such neat 4X title should surely deliver on that front, right? I'm sure you know the answer by now. So is there anything this game has to offer that could make up for all that? I honestly don't think so. It does have beautiful pixel art, enjoyable soundtrack and decent story with little bits of humour here and there, but that's about it. It would be a much better little comic or a short animated story than a video game. tl;dr: PROS: +beautiful pixel art +enjoyable soundtrack +decent story +chuckle-worthy humour CONS: -painfully shallow -repetitive and tiresome -artificial difficulty -unrewarding grind and progress -tech tree, skill and combat systems are dull and at times entirelly pointless -diplomatic choices don't matter -territory expansion is very limited -procedural generation goes to the extent of making you feel like eating the same apple but with your left hand this time -customization non-existant -BUGS -the game plays itself for you while constantly annoying you at the same time Verdict: just play FTL