This is by far, hands down, the most immersive 4x game I've ever played. Gameplay is largely intuitive, reasonably complex to master, and extremely fun. The audio and visual experience is pure candy. The UI systems are well layed out, and (this may seem a bit petty) the font is easy to read. I don't see why every damn strategy game out there makes things hard to read or unpleasant to look at. Endless Space 2 is the rare exception. Every bit of information is displayed in a large and easy to read font. This is especially helpful given all the resources, races, governments and planet types you'll be managing.

Although combat lacks true tactical combat, at least there's mechanisms in the game to strategize ahead of time (moreso for ship combat). It's not Stars in Shadow good, but it is not Stellaris/Galactic Civilizations bad either.

This is not to say this game hasn't had some rough edges. Performance, albeit improving with patches, can be a bit slow or non-responsive at times. Not so much in turn time, but sometimes the UI just stops responding to clicks and you have to tab out and kill the process. Thankfully autosaves every turn keep you from losing time. Victory turns can take a few minutes before displaying, giving you that dread of "ugh did my win die with a bug or what?" Minor nuisances really.

All in all, this is a very, very solid 4x game, quite arguably the best on the market right now. Where Stellaris and Galactic Civilizations 3 are very Sandboxy and open, this game is tight. Its unique lore, factions, and systems are what really make it shine.