Yeah, you have to have a fairly large screen in order to play right now. It's annoying, but there are (Supposedly) ways around it if you check the forums. I'm not sure about the bugs, because there are quite a few - One where you have to add a file to the game folder (Check the orginal post for info on that file, I don't think you need to replace the file in your directory), and another, older one where opposing AI forces would bring everything to a crawl. Now the game just deletes fleets that take too long in combat (Hopefully not the players', though!). On my system the game pops up with lots of error reports, but the game is still playable.
At the moment, the game is so incredibly complex that you need to spend a few hours getting around the basics - I'm still figuring out how to do things, but I really enjoy figuring out complex stuff so it's my kind of cake. The game is deep enough to make it worth it (For me).
My experience mostly involves interest, discovery, frustration, and then I stop playing for a while until the process starts over again. I think I've got most of the game down (Besides combat, I usually just get plastered before I can experiment), and I think it's really fun - Until the NPR that's ten times as advanced as you are comes and nukes your homeworld out of nowhere. I suggest making the difficulty 5%, for that... They won't grow much, so they won't expand much.
I honestly can't wait until the developper comes out with newer versions that makes certain things more manageable and less Micro-Managey. That's the biggest problem for me, right now - It's impossible to do anything without fiddling around with lots of screens and keeping track of your officers is a pain, since there are so many and they constantly die/retire/get sick, and you often don't know if they had any important assignments or not.
I think it's fun, since it takes all the things that I love about 4X games and makes it complex and interesting. I love the whole civilian space-liner side of it, since it's never really explored in 4X games.
You have to remember that the game is still in its basic stages and won't be exactly what everyone wants from it. I look forward to seeing it grow, especially in the AI department - Aliens seem more like homicidal maniacs than the cautious, curious beings that I kind of expect from extraterrestrials.
So, if it interests you, go ahead and try it, but if it doesn't (Or if it's too frustrating) it's best to wait a year or so until it's more developped.
On an off-note, I keep on finding Jump Gates that lead from uninhabited systems with only one Warp Point - It's like there used to be something there, but there aren't any ruins (That I've found) or anything. There are no Jump Gates leading into the systems, and none of the planets in those systems have an environment that could support life, which just makes it weirder. I've taken active sensors into these places, put them on planets where there could be a growing alien base, but there's nothing! Anyone know what those are from?