It's a slightly odd hybrid mix of gameplay, part 4x, part wargame. It kind of plays like a turn based RTS to me, the way players spawn in and fight to kill each others' bases - there isn't really a passage of time, you just get your economy running, research more powerful units, then outproduce and outfight your enemies with no diplomacy until they're all dead. The game does focus on action though and the combat is a lot of fun. The AI is also a lot of fun to play against, it attacks in waves with tight formations, pulls its injured units off the front line to heal, retreats when it starts losing and so on. The game is also surprisingly flexible, you can play 1vAI, coop versus AI, 1v1, team versus team etc.

Interestingly a bit like old school games, there is no safety net when planning your bases and a few of the races make it quite easy to bankrupt yourself. (The classic is races where units cost minerals, unit upkeep is minerals, new buildings cost minerals. You pump out early units, empty your mineral reserves, then can't afford mineral buildings to get out of trouble and have to scrap your units to get flowing again!)

The downsides are that the UI and information in general is frequently cluttered and unclear, the combat focus doesn't make the game feel as replayable as a good civ game, and it's also very expensive if you want the DLCs. (It somewhat follows the Paradox formula, the extra races are genuinely different but collectively bump up the price a lot.)

Tip: In the video options set "Fixed Time of Day: 89%" - the time of day feature sounds fun and the changing colour palette is OK, but it also changes the angle units are lit from, so a lot of the time you end up struggling to look at units that aren't lit from the front. This option keeps them lit from the front like every other game does.