Hope this has not been posted before, the review is some days old.
My favourite German Game Site, www.4players.de, gave sins 84/100 points. For this site, this is quite good! In my opinion, they have the best reviews on the german market. The review contains over three pages and is quite well written; including an "review" of buying sins online. Unfortunately, they had problems while buying - fortunately, the support was quick to help.
Link for those who speak German: http://www.4players.de/4players.php/dispbericht/PC-CDROM/Test/8290/7793/0/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire.html
or go to www.4players.de and click on "PC" - then you can see it.
The pros:
-big star systems
-many options
-useful computer allies
-UI
- impressive battles with many ships
-KI
-black market and pirates as the "salt in the soup"
-possibility to give orders during pause
- useful automatics
- Capital Ships
-save and continue online games
- the music
- the editor
- modding
- the statistics after a game
contra:
- not much tactics during a battle
- not a "fast game"
- the tutorial is not helpful
- Diplomacy is one-sided
- Managing many ships and fleets is difficult/could be easier
- same for big empires
- the three races have many similarities
- no campaign
- learning process takes very long
- crashes during online games
- no online profile -> no warning of "disconnectors"
