Reviewing SpaceTrace

First off: I fell in love with this game. During the last year the developers added a bunch of new features and improved the gameplay a lot. And it is still completely free without premium accounts or stuff like that.
You play one of five very inventive alien races, join 
an alliance and try to colonize or conquer the galaxy. The colony-part 
of the game is easy to learn and also quite entertaining. While you gain
 more insights into the gameplay you start fighting against enemy 
fleets. Unlike other games, the battle system allows you to score right 
from the beginning. Research will give you the ability to improve and 
customize your fleets with specialized ships, but you always have to put
 a lot of thought in your fleet setup, anticipate what ships your enemy 
might use, analyzing their strategies and so on. That's quite 
challenging, but also very rewarding.
The game is really unique. It's deep and complex and maybe a little intimidating at first. What I like most about it, that the developers do not follow the common browsergame trends, like reducing the gameplay to building stuff and assembling ressources or tend to simplify everything, because they underestimate the intelligence of their players. Give it a try, don't give up after the first few days and you will be amazed by the 
strategical and tactical possibilities.