Dont bother with it at this time, it is a non-functional Beta product that is being billed as a full game. Come back in 3-6 months after they fix this pile of shit.
well it works but have the feel of a late 90s game and some of the Good parts of it are not encountered until the later stages of the tec tree... If you remember Ascendency( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendancy_(video_game) ) its much like it but with fewer races and a story line.... i stick with SoTS2 as its more complete even after all the things that was wrong at the start of it...
Never played Master of Orion, but my favorite space 4x would be Space Empires IV. I've logged quite a bit of time on that game...
I loved Masters of Orion 2. Man I spend so much time in this game.. It was, is an truly epic game. RIP
I still ocasionally play MOO2. Played almost every 4X space game that came out since, but nothing comes even close. I like Distant Galaxies, but it requires too much micro-management once you have a large empire; the AI is not very good at handling fleets