Ascendancy

The Good
Graphically beautiful, with a nice tech tree and plenty of interesting structures to build on and around your planets. The galaxy is modeled in three dimensions, which (as far as this reviewer knows) was a first in this genre. There are a lot of races to choose from, and the game itself can be customized extensively, so in theory you could play it forever.

The Bad
Politics and diplomacy are minimal, and ship design and combat are extremely lacking -- basically, the bigger the ship the better, so there aren't really any interesting tradeoffs to make. The three dimensional galaxy helps cover up the weak AI opponent, since the jumpgate system forces you to move through bottlenecks and generally limits you to frontal assaults. The races are many, but they just don't have a whole lot of personality when compared to those in Master of Orion.

The Bottom Line
There are good things about Ascendancy, but too many bad things along with them. I recommend that you resist the temptation to pick up this game, and stick to MOO and MOO2 instead.