This post has about as much effort put into it as the developers of BE put into their game.
Game is extremely barebones.
No cultural victory, no diplomatic victory, no analogue to SMAC's council.
AI still hasn't improved a bit.
Combat, combat, combat, combat everywhere.
Maps are too small which practically forces factions to fight for territory right off the bat. Impossible to ignore them even in early game.
Aliens are boring as hell, just reskinned 'barbarians.
The factions, oh god the factions are so
boring. Absolutely hollow, no identity whatsoever, almost nothing to differentiate them. The world itself is also just another Earth, no mysteries nothing worth exploring.
The writing of SMAC was thought provoking, an interesting insight into each of the factions strongly worded ideologies;
"Prokhor Zakharov: Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist. "
Contrast that with Beyond Earth's;
"Instruct the children not to dream of toys and sweets. Instruct them to dream of infrastructure.
So deep, so profound, thank you Vadim Kozlov, mat' tvayu.
Really I'd rather play that Pandora game, at least it attempts to mimic SMAC more.
The buildings, the wonders, they're all utterly sad. Yay, I get +2 food, great. None of those neat mini movies to show off your unique achievement, nothing noteworthy whatsoever.
Managing trade routes is a micro HELL.
It's sad, it cannot compete with Civ5, at best it's currently just a reskin with less features, and definitely does not even come close to matching its spiritual predecessor from
1999.
Save yourself the money, this thing will need more than a few expansions/DLCs before it's worth the price tag.