Just had a bone to pick with the genre.  I've been playing Sins for about a week now, and I have been enjoying it.  But to be honest, I don't really see what makes this a 4X game.  Sure you expand, explore, etc., but there's very little diplomacy, and needing multiple (read: more than two) large fleets, even at the late-game, is extremely rare.  I know it's supposed to be "RT4X," fine, but the only thing making it seem 4X is the amount of time it takes to collect resources.  Really, to me, this game is more of a long-winded RTS.