I've been playing Endless Space 2 since it came out on Early Access, so I might be a tad biased, but here's my two cents: It's certainly a look that I want them to take forward into other genres now that they got their big SEGA payday. It's by far the coziest 4X game I've ever played, there's a stunning attention to detail in every part of the UI, in their art design, in their writing, in the music. If you liked Endless Legend, you'll feel right at home. This is definitely a traditional turn-based space 4X through and through.
Stellaris is far shallower than the first impression you get from it, and emphasized more roleplaying and faction customization. I like it more than Stellaris, for what it's worth. By itself, it provides relatively little innovation to the 4X genre. It definitely looks like they played A LOT of Stellaris and decided to take a bunch of concepts from there, and mix it with Endless Legend concepts. Their art design in general is stunning as always the game itself is not as innovative as Endless Legend was, and I have a few caveats as to how unique each race feels (there's a little less room for quirky races than in EL). I think it's pretty good but I'm usually biased towards Amplitude's 4X games. It is not unplayable in a turn based game, but definitely annoying and I hope they find the issue and fix it. Every 10-20 seconds there is kind of a monetary stutter and the frame rate tanks for a second, then everything goes back to normal perfect smoothness. I am having a technical issue with the game however. Love that the factions are still so varied (at least as far as I can tell from reading their traits and description), the developer knows their strengths and what worked in Endless Legend so they are continuing down this path. But I am very early on and was sleepy when playing it. I found the political system a bit convoluted and not well explained so difficult to quickly wrap my head around. So far I'm digging their design style, it's very similar Endless Legend. Which if some of you are not aware in real world Russian history the latter overthrew the former, quite violently. It's basically an Imperialist Tzar but with the Socialist/Communist propaganda posters and appeal to the population. I also really like the twist on the human faction. I know it's technically a minor irrelevant thing in the grand quality of the game but fuck me if it doesn't pop out and makes me want to play all those races even more. Man the artwork for the races is fantastic. Only played a few hours, so first surface level impressions.