Complete thoughts:
This is not the spiritual successor to MOO or MOO2, and anyone saying so is flat out lying. It's far, far closer to civilization in space. Which probably shouldn't suprise me, given the name.
The weapons and armor tech tree is very large and very very dull. You spend a LOT of time researching the same tech, only a little smaller, over and over again.
Actually, an awful lot of the tech trees are just upgrades to old buildings, over and over. Not exactly the kind of thing that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
While the aesthetic portion of ship design is nice, the actual functionality level of it blows. Way to few options. And why on earth do Mass drivers 1 still appear if you've got mass drivers 2, 3, 4, and 5?
The diplomacy aspect is nice. Stratetic play is generally pretty good, though managing planets and starbases quickly turns into micromanagement hell that makes even the MOO's look user friendly.
Verdict: If you haven't bought it yet, and Civ in space sounds good to you, wait til it hits the budget rack.
