Well, I don't find the genre mix to be a diluted, weaker form of each, but rather something that makes a unique game experience. Personally I prefer competitive MP RTS but since that is hard to find on ICO sometimes, I also enjoy playing the SP.

In typical RTS games, skirmish games vs AI are very boring because the AI is incredibly stupid and there isn't much depth to the experience. The 4x aspect of Sins makes the SP more interesting and the AI poses enough of a challenge at Unfair level to make it interesting (and trust me, many RTS AI is stupider than Sins).

I would love to see Sins have an active MP ladder but I've accepted that that is likely never going to happen - not unless Rebellion miraculously pulls in thousands of people looking to play MP and Starclad feel compelled to add it then.

I play Sins because it brings a certain game experience that is hard to find. The real time makes it more engaging and exciting than turn based games but it's got a nice pace to it that doesn't require high apm, twitch based RTS gaming - so it's kind of relaxing and stimulating to play at the same time - that's probably the best way I can put it and not that many RTS are like that. It's sort of chess like in that way I guess - more thinking and strategizing than just based on muscle memory actions.

I do like Sins, but i was worried about all that i´ve explained in the first post.

I was a Warcraft 3 player before, but i´ve became tired of war rts games and wanted some more culture-economy focused strategy game. Then i´ve found sins, and bought trinity and rebellion after : D

I would like to see more multiplayer matches with Diplomatic or Research victories as a possibility. You wouldn´t?

i just do. always have. only play online dont care what map/3v3/4v4/FFA just wanna play/fight!

Another thing that is true is, whatever the game its told to be "not as deep as other 4x games", all of my friends get shocked when they see all of the tech trees of every faction (this seems so hard! so complex! ooh my god! etc...).

I think the game its not "that" complex. It´s easier than other RTS: you have automatized skills with every cap ship, your ships attacks their best enemy automattically, all of your techs are grouped in 5 pages instead in many buildings (academy, town hall, armory in Age of Empires, etc...), and you can queue a lot of upgrades and unit production simultaneously.

Well, i think sins its great

First and most importantly. It doesn't require an Internet connection, so if I was plugged at some cafe who don't offer free internet, even then internet security is pretty much crap, I can play a game without having to connect to the WWW.

Play with mods, push your system on how many ships you can have on the screen at one point. Have epic battles. Some battles I have played in which all of my 10 fleets (each with like over 100 ships) are in these epic battle to the death with 2-3 other AI players. The number of debris is just spectacular.