I want to like this game, so could someone who loves the series sell me on it.

Points to help guide your sale:

1) Does the series have playable capital ships (Destroyers, Dreadnoughts, Cruisers, Carriers)? If so, do they play well? Do you think X: Rebirth will be similar in that aspect?

2) Does it have mining (and by extension, do you mine for stuff to build bigger ships/weapons) and other mundane missions such as escort, trade, exploration, etc.

3) If anyone has played Nexus or Darkspace, does it play like those games?

4) Will it blend?

SPACE!

A big difference in X Rebirth from the previous game X3, is that you can only fly one ship first-hand; which can be upgraded quite extensively. However, they've added a way for you to remotely control certain ships and fly drones (of roughly the size of a fighter class ship) for example. Part of why I think they've gone that route is that it is a lot of work to create the interiors of all the space ships to a similar level as the one ship you do get to fly personally. The main focus for most people playing this game is to build their own empire/fleet of ships and just rock the economy.

There are usually Main Story / Side Story missions, but if this is anything at all like X3 in that regard, it'll let you roam free in the universe as you please and you can seek out the NPCs or events that trigger the story whenever you feel like it.

It is useful to read up on the Giant Bomb wiki for the entire X-series, as well as do some simple google searches and you should get a pretty good idea of how it plays; Also YouTube is a great tool to see gameplay.

@funkydupe: So in a sense they're trying to make a single player Star Citizen? But only one ship?

EDIT: Also, did they come out and say what class of ship yours would be?

It plays like Tachyon: The Fringe. It plays like an arcadey flight game. It has a slide mechanic which a lot of space sims kinda forgot was important and cool. The cap ships are pretty amazing but adhere to the rules of video game space. So, they end up being slow but super powerful. The equivalency to mining in this game is a full on economic system. You can eventually build the stations that generate the resources to make stuff. But, you can make your bank on pure assassination missions if you'd like. Eventually when you get your trade skill up you could completely automate trading. It is definitely a fun game with a lot of flaws. Just shooting shit is fun. This is primarily why I hate Eve Online. Shooting shit in EVE is not fun even if there is a player behind the wheel.

The game is open world and faction based. If you wanted to you could start a war against any race in the game. A friend of mine decided it was time to murder all the fish people in the game (the race is called the split I think). Also, the best race in any video game are called the K'haak.

Well, you see, Mega Man X is the absolute...

Oh.

With a lot of games, you are the center of the universe, and everything that happens is because of you. X is the complete opposite, you are an insect in a world of giants.

It's as close to EVE Offline as you can get.

How about trying the game yourself, instead of asking for the opinions of strangers? No matter how many opinions you get, you'll never get the full experience unless you play it yourself. Experiencing something for yourself is usually the fastest and easiest way to find out if you like something or not.

Its only natural for games to borrow elements that work from each other EVE, X-series and Star Citizen all look at the competition. Space sim players nowadays from what I've gathered want to see the inside of their ships, they don't want to 'be an actual spaceship, they want to be a dude/dudette who happens to fly spaceships', so for X Rebirth to focus more on walking around in first-person than before makes sense but it drains resources from other areas of development.

I believe it is a Corvette class; because the developers want it to be a versatile ship, decent size, have a crew, drone capabilities depending on how you want to upgrade it. It has plenty of upgrade possibilities, that's what Egosoft says. It can get considerably more durable and powerful but you probably won't best battleships and such with it head on.

You can mine, trade, build factories, space stations, stationary defensive structures, do escort missions, bounty hunter type missions, courier missions, explore etc, all pretty much per space sim/x-series standards... If you're trying to build a reputation with an NPC organization, and you do a lot of these missions they can tend to get repetitive, that's my opinion anyway. Maybe they've found ways to make them more interesting.

Still no optional multiplayer.

1)Yes, I believe so. They certainly get quite big.

2) Yes. Not sure that you can get materials to build ships and weapons, but pretty much everything else is yes.

3) Maybe? It's halfway between Freelancer and Eve. Freelancer with a little more economy and depth and mining.

I will say that Rebirth is going to be a significant change to the series. Not from the basics, but just the way it plays and stuff. Did you see that cockpit view? Sexy!

X3 is pretty awesome, and cheap. Pick it up on steam and check it out, and if it appeals to you, keep a watchful eye on Rebirth.
I'm pretty new to the series, but that's what I've gathered so far.

There is a demo for X3 if you want to test the waters. It shows a few different ship classes, mining and building/owning/managing facilities, basic combat, a bit on how the economy is simulated, ect. Keep in mind that the demo is old (2006!) when you give it a go in that so it doesn't completely colour your expectations for Rebirth, as from what they've said there will be some extensive changes to everything that X3 was in this game.

Fixed that for you.