I have played ALL previous X titles, and I loved them. I love the open universe, where you CAN fly anywhere, thought at great risk, and you CAN do everything, even if it has consequences.
This pathrtic thing though..This Alpha release...This refuse from Egosoft. It voids all previous work done by them. There is Egosoft pre X-Rebirth, and there is post X-Rebirth. Post X-Rebirth and Egosoft have placed themself in the dubious category of firms, that sell a title on nothing more than the success of its predecessors. Egosoft have gone Diablo 3 with X-Rebirth, only much, much worse.
The good:
The detail in space is fantastic. Space never looked so good. (Thats it. There really isn't anything else to say).
The bad:
These details are pointless, as the game bugs down to a 5 FPS slugfest on even the best of machines.
The FPS lag fest will also have you clawing at your face, as you try to hit infinitely small docking ports....Twice, or perform any of the other myriad of necessary tasks.
When you manage to dock, you enter a spacestation, 1 of 3 take your pick, that is beyond ugly. Some compare it to Halflife 2. I'm not that generous. Deus Ex 1 and you get the picture. The right angle tunnels are as ugly as a Trabant.
The only thing more hideous than the spacestations, is its inhabitants. They are positively vile. The "animation", and I use this term VERY loosely, of these androgynic clones is so bad, that they make Scooby Doo, season 1-4, look like Toy Story.
Then these misfits open their mouthes, and you just wish they hadn't, because the "voice acting", again a broad generalisation on my part, is abysmal. They have 10 lines to greet you, 10 lines to say goodbye, and they're ALL complete crap. A dog barking would be an improvement. Or a howler monkey.
Then there's the menu's. Ohhh my god the menu's! To call up ship status, you have to press enter, then 2 and then 1. I am not making it up. You need to punch in a 3 keystroke code, just to see your inventory and ship status.
Storyline mission is broken. Only way around it, is to keep 2 seperate strands of savegames, since if one strand breaks, you may voided hours of gameplay if you do not have a backup.
Trading is broken and so cumbersome and lethargic, that only chartered accountants would find any joy in it.
There is no radar. Thats right. Elite from 1984 had a radar, but ohhhhhh no. Not you.
And since damage is distributed evenly on your shield, you can't see where the shots are coming from. And since the coclpit window is cluttered with ugly mood graphics, your "viewport" is basically a keyhole.
As if this didn't make targetting hard enough, you also have to click the target you want to fire on. Aaaaaand there's the 5 FPS again.
Lasers are rated by range and damage. Thats it. No FPS available, since there is no shot per second. So is the fased Maser better than the Plasma cannon? Who knows?
There is only 3 or 4 of every ship component for your ship and you are stuck in the hideous rustbucket for ever. There is one ship, and ONLY one ship.
Add to ALL this, the constant bugs, tedium, crash to desktop and other stuff.
This is after 14 hours, and plenty of reloads, CTD's and other assorted "fun". The game might have other redeeming factors, but to be fair. Its not the the bugs or gameply thats the problem. It is the entire game. This isn't an unpolished gem. It is a polished turd.
Avoid this game at all costs, and avoid all Egosoft titles after this one, until you have verified their quality.