My disk is on the way to being an expensive coaster. I was counting on the single play being good because IMHO multiplay games will take way too long.
The AI seems to be pretty poor and the game play is somewhat interesting, but not exciting. What killed it for me are two things:
1. Going to war with a race and then watching the race's 36 dreadnoughts fail to attack my lightly defended colony that I just took from them.
2. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the diplomacy and moods. If I start doing too well, all of the contacted races get ticked off and declare war.
I will definitely look for patches to correct game play issues, but as it stands there's no way I can recommend SEIV to anyone else.
I should know by now - DO NOT PREORDER!