i kind of like x3 a lot, actually i enjoy ap with xrm, witch makes it pretty damn hard (incursions of bugs and xenons everywhere XD )
though, i like the over all game play and spend endless hours with the series, there are some design decisions that drive me off.
like, why the hell do i have to explore the universe with each every game? or search for the facilities in every sector? it doesnt make any sense. (one would imagine maps and yellow pages would still exist even in a distant future)
or why do i have to set up a sat network untill i can communicate? again: no sense at all, space would be kind of cluttered if every body had to build his own communication network. sole reason is to prolong the game- but the game really does not need this.
but, this is fixed easily by cheating a bit, so all this leaves is a mild amusement for the crotchety o the devs
finally, there have been totally game breaking problems with the series in the past (like the degrading performance with x3tc, and with made the game virtually unplayable by mid game, or the buggy beam weapons with reduced the fps so hard that it was not possible to fight larger battles against the kaahk. both bugs where completely game breaking, and both problems obviously have not been to difficult to fix - proofed by mods that sucessfully adressed these issues quickly. yet, the devs took YEARS to fix them, and only finally made X3TC fully playable without modifying it *after* X3AP was released.
im really pissed here, and i doubt i will buy another egosoft game at full price anytime soon.