It is no sin to love this game.
GameplayScale 9.5/10 - Imagine walking down the store aisle and seeing Sins of a Solar Empire on the shelf. As you pick it up its says right on the front of the box, "Unrivaled Scale". Boy does this message really keep true! When beginning a game of Sins you can have multiple galaxies, solar systems, and planets. This allows for long, epic games to take place, or short (1-3 hours) matches between mostly the AI or other players from around the world. So imagine that you are a very hardcore RTS player. Think of a 3 galaxy map, with around 6 stars each, and just about 7 planets per star. In Sins you can play with 126 planet maps! There are pre-generated maps and custom maps where you select the specifications you want, and the game automatically generates a map to fit what you created. The maximum number of players on huge maps in 10, allied or enemies.
There are three races to play as, 2 human and one alien. For each planet there are upgrades you can develop such as a larger population, more logistic and technical build slots, and to explore the planet's surface to try and find ancient artifacts which buff your empire. Logistic slots are used to build logistic buildings.These buildings include frigate and capital ship bays, hostile and civilized research stations, and trade centers. Hostile research includes better ships, improved weapon and shields, and defenses. Civilized research is based on research on your race's society, culture, and influence. Technical slots are used to build defense platforms such as fighter hangars and turrets. Planets usually contain a certain amount of asteroids that are used to mine resources, either metal or crystal, which are used to buy upgrades, research, and ships. You also have credits as a monetary resource.
The disappointing aspect of Sins scale is the size of your fleets. As you build each ship it is controlled individually and is very tiny in comparison to the planets and stars. Even though this gives you a sense of how small you really are, and how big the map is, I think the ship size could have been easily doubled. Early in the game where you can have 5 frigates at your command, it seems as though you are moving tiny dots in space. While this is probably what they were aiming for, your fleets can be sometimes hard to see, and since this is mostly like another part of the universe or galaxy, or in the future, I'd expect things to be huge.
Interface 10/10 - I believe Sin's interface deserves its own sub-category. It very excellent. Everything you need plays on the side of the screen where its not in the way, but still very accessible. If you want to jump to a specific planet just look or scroll down and you can immediately travel half the universe away to there. All of the planets' surrounding ships are neatly organized there along with buildings and mines. New players and old veterans will be pleased with this.
Graphics 9/10 - Sins has a great amount of detail on everything. Each ship has its own, visible windows and etc. On a huge fleet, each ship looks just as detailed and sharp as the last.
When ships are flying by, you see the little motion and gas waves out the back, and the lasers look great in motion. Planetary explosions look great from a distance. Its almost everything you expect.
The suns look awesome just like the planets. There is so much detail, you can see little ships flying on the planets' surface. I thought this was so cool. I had the pleasure to see this all maxed.
The only problem I have is that when you want a close up view of a ship, some details can look washed out. Although you can't normally do this, do to the lack of space to command ships, it can be quite annoying to see all of the normally forgotten detail, but not the normally done detail. This won't be a problem for people with low-end computers. Sins runs fantastic on low-end computers and high end.
This game was clearly made to be watched at a distance away from everything else, and this is also how it is played best.
Depth 10/10 - This is literally a "real time" strategy game. There are no turns. Finally there is a game like Sins to cut out the garbage, show some guts, and say, "Yeah man. This is a real RTS".
Everything you do has an effect on the rest of your empire. Devoting a planet to research, will cut it out of any trade possibilities. It is important to really take your time with Sins. Players who like to "rush" will probably find themselves scrambling to catch up in the end! A lot of this game relies on experience and going with the flow of your empire. Pre-planing can help you out in the early stages, but as you continue a single attack by the enemy will just blow you away. The more time you spend with Sins, the more rewarding it really becomes. A person can easily sink 2 hours with their first game, and on their second can be twice as good as before. This is a really special game for slower RTS players, and maybe something new and challenging for speedy ones.
A.I. - 9.5/10 There really isn't anything to bad to say here. The A.I. is solid at all difficulties and skill levels. No matter who you are, Sins will offer a challenging, and rewarding experience. It reacts when you attack, and give you missions to perform so maybe they will become your allies. The A.I. doesn't cheat like some other games, where 20 ships will spawn from no where. It's fair, smart, and excellent. To me, Sins really feels like a single player only game, where multi player can fall a little short, and the A.I. performs so well!
A few complaints are the diplomacy is fairly simplistic for this game, but is being improved in an upcoming add-on. Also, pirate attacks every 15 minutes to an empire can really be annoying to some players.
Overall 9/10 - I am giving this game a 9/10. Its support has been outstanding with patches and bug fixes, balance, other small issues. Almost any strategy fan can enjoy this game. Just a note for potential buyers, the micro-transition Entrenchment makes many improvements to planet defense and is a must!