Oh, baby!! This is your Star Trek wet dream.
Infinite Space, much like Demon's Souls for the PS3, throws you into the fire from the very beginning and expects you to get your wits about you quickly and intelligently lest you feel like dying.
And dying you will do for space is a dangerous place ... so save often.
Battles are fought in real-time, often requiring that you pay close attention to your distance to enemy space craft (Are your guns in range to fire? Are their guns in range to hit you?), your power meter (which determines the type of attacks or maneuvers you can perform) and the direction to or away from your enemy (you might want some distance if your power meter is recharging ... you might want to get closer if theirs is). In other words, there is no button mashing, only opponents who really do want to kill you!!
Like I said: save often.
And while I think that the difficulty will put some people off, truth is, it's the DANGER that is part of the appeal. You're in outer space like a cowboy making his way through the Wild West ... It's a deadly world but it's beautiful.