At first, it looks to be as good as Freelancer, and then add empirebuilding to the mix. But in reality, it sux
But ooooh how wrong you can be, first of all. The whole flightsimulator and space combat, it sux. The enemy is way to good, and you yourself can hardly hit anything.
In fact no one hits anything in this game, everyone just fly around shooting. But if you ever get a shot in, it does a lot of dmg. Here is an example. I was escorting some freight ships between three systems.
In each system a group of about 5 enemies appear and attack the convoy.
Personally i didnt do jack, i might have killed 1 in the first system, my own computer controlled protector killed one. And the slow convoy killed the rest.
Next system, pretty much the same, one of the freight ships died (had 5 from the beginning)
And then the last system, prob 7 enemies appear. The freight convoy is heading to the spacestation, and as soon as the dock i succed with the mission. Well this system is controlled by the military, so there are 10 military ships that hunt the pirates, and a battlecruiser. (huge frikking thing) But no they dont actually kill the pirates, they just fly around doing nothing.
So i reason, heck ill just leave the system, the pirates arnt even trying to attack me anyways. So i travel to the nerest portal about 20 sek travel away from where i am.
WELL WHAT HAPPENS! ONE OF THEM SHOOTS ME! THREE HITS IN 2 SEK AND IM DEAD. Oh did i forget to mention that the game only saves when you dock at a space station. So for the last hour and a half i have traveled 3 systems and finally succed with the mission, but i get killed on the way to a staion. So i dont get to keep anything.
now thats fun,
In freelancer you had regeneraion on your shields and you could by nanobots and batteries to restore your hp and sheilds if you happen to be in a hard battle. There are no such things in X3. You have the health of the ship, nothing else. And to repair your ship costs just about as much as buying a new one.
I spent prob 10 hours just getting cash by flying between stations traiding resources, buying new freighters that the computer controlled which also game me income. Now that as really cool, and something that would have been cool in freelancer, but still. after 10 hours of constant traiding. I still couldnt buy a the smalles spacestation, and that cost about a 100th of what a big station cost.
Imagine if you you have your huge fleet, if you ever get that far into the game, and you feel like playing a fighter. if you ever get killed nothing gets saved between the times you visited spacestations. So you will be stuck playing the huge cruiser with alot of hp, waiting for the computer to kill all your enemies. Frikking boring. No this game eats up time, and you dont get better at any rate that you can actually notice. SO DONT BUY THIS GAME!