I've played a few times, and normally this kind of game is right up my alley. My favorite games of all time was probably XCOM series games, MOO, and others like C&C and Warcraft II.
However, this game has a lot of interesting and satisfying points, but I'm just not satisfied with the timing, staging, and results of the research elements of the game. They seem to take too long, and require too much to have gone on before things start to get interesting. Simultaneously, I don't like that its a finite choice between investing in progress in one area, and not being able to make progress in other areas of research. There is so much to research, that it would seem to offer differentiation in style, strategy, and approach in many ways, but the way it works now, it requires a myopic and singular approach at the expense of most all other research elements.
Seems unbalanced and unsatisfying. Maybe I'm approaching the game scale and playability with the wrong expectations for how the game experience is supposed to be played or enjoyed.
