So I had a chance to play this recently (rare I see a "new" game or play anything at all...)
Not seeing the love for it, but I'm sure not surprised about BGG going apeshit over it.
Beaten to death above, but in no way shape or form a 4X game (and that's okay!). It's a pure spreadsheet optimizer, with the minimal addition of a map. However, even the map is constructed in such a way that everyone's basically adjacent to everyone with the tunnels anyway.
There's quite a few things in there that feel like arbitrary chrome or balancing points. "Enlist" doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and the entire "character" and discovering the cards seems needless. The Factory seems totally underused as well. It's no Mecatol Rex, or even the Nexus Ops Monolith.
I didn't see a lot of huge differences between the powers or the spreadsheet boards either. Some minor tweaks here and there, and the spreadsheets are going to dictate what you focus on first, just by pure costs.
The biggest thing that annoyed me was the stars being both the game clock and the biggest scoring mechanism. So you're encouraged to get the hell out of the game just when it starts to get good. Typical spreadsheet behavior, when the engine starts running, the game is over.
So I think it's super fun for people who want to optimize shit, with a tiny hint of plastic trash to make it subversive and exciting. I'd play it again, but I don't think I'd ever ask specifically for it to come out. Overall somewhat disappointing.
(I look forward to Barnes blowing it out pre-Christmas, because there's no way this is forever shelf material)