I think GalCiv2 with all expansions is still the best space 4x game out there. It's also easily modable and people are still fixing and improving the game, years after Stardock stopped releasing patches, since they're working on Elemental now. It is regarded as the strategy game with the best AI, since it doesn't start to cheat like in other games only until at the very highest difficulties, and is still an actual challenge. At the normal difficulty, the AI uses only like 75% of its potential. The AI will know to counter your weapons and defenses, will know if you're gathering forces on their borders, if you get too powerful, AI races will work together to bring you down, even providing weapons to your enemies. There's also extended diplomacy and trading that can be conducted with the AI.
Races are of course similar, because they must be balanced, but they play very differently. For example some use slave labor, so production is very cheap; there is a sentient machines race who can't be converted peacefully; another race reproduces very quickly; in fact each race has a special super ability which grants them... well a super ability unique to their race. They also have different type of structures, unique tech trees and unique ship styles. There are also 3 different ethical alignments you can choose, each with its own bonuses. Regarding the ship design, you can just let the game design ships for you, and you only have to equip the needed weapons, defenses, engines etc., there's no need to create uniquely looking ships if you don't want to. The techtree is very extensive and for its size, is very well presented. Each tech has a simple description of what it will grant you, and when it's researched you are presented with a detailed description. Dialogue and descriptions are presented in a humorous matter, but it's well combined with the actual lore of the game and is quite pleasant.
The UI is very well done. Remember that the original game was released in 2006. The UI is very functional, and very informative, and you can also customize the color of the UI at the start of the game to fit your race's color. The music is very good, diverse and fits the game perfectly.
The graphics are also very good for this kind of game. Remember that this is a strategy game with an enormous scope. On the biggest galaxy size it would probably take like a month to finish the game. The point is that you will spend most of the time in the "strategic view", meaning you will see symbolic icons, not looking at the ships' windows. But when you do zoom in, the graphics are good. There's also the HRG mod that improves the textures of the planets and the stars and makes the game quite beautiful. There are also all kinds of automations to manage your empire, such as planetary governors, auto-upgrading of starbases and such, because as I said, games can get very big and micromanagement would become an issue otherwise. The game also has huge replayability, with unique 12 races, a custom race creator, and 3 campaigns to play through.
This post has turned into a review of GalCiv2, but the original poster was bashing the game, I just wanted to show him and others that were quickly turned off by the game, that it has a lot to offer.
I also find Armada 2526 Gold to have a lot of depth, but horrible UI is a game breaker for me. 4X fans give it a try, it's actually a good game, very MOO2-like.
