The game still crashes on me, at first when i newly purchased the game it randomly crashes when im playing, now when I tried to play it on my desktop I get a back screen after a 100% in the loading screen, it doenst give me any notifications that the game crashed, after looking in the internet for solution and fount that there is a problem with people who are using Realtek audio and a possible fix, however it wasnt the case for me and no matter what I do it still crashes after it gets to 100%. Hope this gets fixed Asap becasue I dont know what else to do. And the Game would have been great without these bugs.

This game is absolutely incredible! Amazing Graphics and a flight fealing and an immersion that i never had before... I just love to fly through this pulsating universe. Not everything is perfect, it is sometimes still hard to find out what the mission is about and where you have to go. But in the end its a beautiful game and a total mind-drift into the universe! Give those programmers some bucks, they really deserve it!

Game has came very very far since its release and a great deal of debugging and adding of new features has made the game really good to play.

Overall this game in its current state is worth every cent. There are problems stemming from insufficient quality control and play testing but you can still get many hours of joy out of this game despite the problems.
However, if you are a X2 or X3 fan, then be warned that this is not X4 rather its a continuation of the game style in the original X game, 'Beyond the Frontier'. Notably you can only fly a single ship although it is a very capable ship.

Pro:

• Good space combat: Not Excellent like 'Freespace' but you get to target surface components of capital ships while dodging turret fire and thinking tactically about avoiding the turrets field of fire, flying faster than its tracking speed and avoiding head on conflicts with some deadly turrets that are near impossible to dodge.
  
• Economy: Empire building is generally enjoyable in this game, just be smart about location. Space station building is much more complex in this X game compared to previous X game, now you have to worry about hiring the right people to work on your station and building extensions.
  
• Story: I found the story to be enjoyable, you get to explore (within the campaign) and help the underdogs survive and grow.
  
• Space Terrain: Space is no longer a big empty void, plenty of asteroids, derelicts, space clouds and highways to give you a tactical advantage (if you know how)

Con:

• Steep learning curve, lack of cue's, sadistic mission design occasionally: Sometimes you find that the game drops you in the deep-end or leaves you hanging from a cliff and you have to start googling to figure out how to proceed. For example, the campaign requires you to build a space station but it turns out that you cannot buy some of the prerequisite items. After some googling you find out that you have to become a pirate and steal said item but then you find out that you have to do a borderline sadistic amount of grinding to get enough of said item to proceed.
  Another example is that the campaign gives you a powerful war ship but doesnt tell you how to repair or move it, even after some googling you may still have trouble moving it.
  Another example is how larger ships move, the game gives you a capital ship but doesnt teach you about the jump fuel and capital ship booster dynamics, leaving you with some unnecessary confusion.
  Another example is the way station building works, you have to buy a construction ship which builds the station. You might think that the construction ship can then build another station once its done, but no, the construction ship becomes a permanent part of the station that can only upgrade said station, the game doesnt explain this mechanic.
  
• Cumbersome interface: They made some improvements with the updates but it is still unpleasant to use.
  
• Questionable script quality: Sometimes you find that things dont work as expected, often there is a good but obscure reason for it (are your ships lacking some drones? drone bay destroyed? drifted too far from station? etc) other times you find that it appears to be a bug, cancel the previous order and remake same order then it works.
  
• Some incomplete aspects: For example first person mode is quite limited and should be further expanded. Exploration also very limited, although the game does not claim to have a strong exploration element, it would still be an enjoyable addition, currently it is limited to finding some containers in space which are rarely useful and never interesting. Fighters cannot dock on capital ships, not even on carriers, only combat drones can dock. This makes me think that carriers are incomplete.
  
• Your stations can get damaged by trading: The exhaust fumes from a capital ship can damage ships and stations. In practice capital ships trading with stations accidently hurt your stations in this way. Then repairing your own stations is troublesome because you need to physically move the repair wares onto your station attached construction ships, they cannot put buy orders for these items on the market.
  
• Enemy stations cannot be completely destroyed, they will eventually rebuild.

playing the update in free play i have to say that the missions are more fun imo, and the money rewarded for the missions is very high which speeds things along. i am actually relaly enjoying this game. HOWEVER, due to one problem i feel the game is unplayable. still. after all the patchs, not one person thought to be abel to heal ships ni your squad. that is right, your on a misson, an enemy jumps out of a ship, you claim it and add it to your group, go to heal it before starting your pirating of systems, to realises that there is no way to heal thouse ships ? im so confused ! why give us the ability to set up squads and claim ships if we can not heal them and use them ? why allow us to comand thouse ships to attack enemys if we can not heal them ?

(Don't sweat the time on record - I have the no-Steam .exe)

I must have come to X: Rebirth at just the right time, because for the life of me I can't understand the issues previous posters had (except the ones who are die-hard X Series fans who were expecting more of the same - this ain't your grandaddy's X!)

PROS:

* Huge sandboxy universe
* Everything's much much much MUCH prettier than in any previous X installment
* New DLC added more to explore
* Same robust modding community the game has always enjoyed
* YOU CAN GET OUT OF YOUR DAMNED SHIP NOW WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
* Interface requires a certain intelligence level to properly and fully use (yes, I count this as a perk)

CONS:

* Capital ships are not directly controllable in this installment
* Someone airbrushed a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ furry on my ride (bet I can mod it off though)
* Bring the latest CPU AND GPU - you're gonna need both

I've been a fan of Egosoft's space entries since X2. So, I guess I know ahead of time to wait about a year or two after the game is released to actually buy in. I decided to take the same wait-to-buy approach with this game, and I feel it's paid off after reading previous reviews from individuals who either didn't know this or knew this but for some odd reason thought things would be different this time around.

I got a game that's freakin' huge in scope (even with a jump drive installed - and yes, you can have a jump drive on the Skunk despite what lesser-informed individuals might have to say on the subject; if you don't believe me you can look it up for yourself), but is a manageable challenge. Whereas other games like Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky just throw up an impossible amount of procedurally-generated cookie-cutter content and call it gameplay, X: Rebirth does a much better job of the three of making its universe seem ALIVE. There is still no better economic simulator in the space sim genre.

Another key factor that sets this game apart from its newer challengers is the modding community. Go on. Try modding either one of those two games. See how fast you lose access to the game you purchased. But with X:R? Fuggetaboutit. Mod this thing six ways to Sunday if you like. If it's good enough, your mod may very well make it into the game. It's happened before.

Control scheme is highly customizable, at least for space sim fans. X Series has never been an entry-level game and I'm glad Egosoft didn't dumb it down like so many games (SWTOR, WoW, pretty much any MMO really) are doing to make their product appeal to stupid people. Dummies need not apply.

I was a little bummed that capital ships can't be directly controlled anymore, since my favored ride in X3TC was a Kyoto. But then I installed the Capital Ship Bridge (4.0+) mod, and lemme tell ya - it's hard to keep myself from thinking I'm not on the bridge of a Galaxy-class starship exploring strange new worlds. I would prefer the option to directly control my superboat in the sequel... because I will definitely be purchasing the sequel.

...after waiting for the launch bugs to be smoothed, of course. ;-)

I've tried through out the years, its not like it hasn't gotten better:

Great visuals,
Added several desired features to the x universe as to complexity of combat and captial ships,
"coherent" story

but not matter what, it has one of the most horrid and frustrating control interfaces in a space game (especially an x game) that I've ever seen. (<--- is that ♥♥♥♥ed up or is my monitor tweaking out?)
Also, 'story', good luck. I can't even tell whats bugged and what's not.

I tried again, and it still is just frustrating mess. Albeit a pretty and ambitious one.

I am huge fan of all X's series, bought this game and was disappointed, because you can't pilot different ships, only the starting M class. I was dreaming to pilot some pirate ships, also little and fast ones, take them as trophy, etc, but nothing here *Thumbs down
Make DLC pls, where I can pilot all ships, and I'll buy it

Man, I really want to like this game. But all I get from it is dispear for not having enough brain power to control things. (I have litterally spent hours in the settings trying to make sense for the controls)

I have played bearly passed the tutorial. Just now on my 8 hour of playing I learned that in order to dock on my own property ship there will appear a special icon for docking. Interaction with the ship gives no hint of how to dock. (And I see the is a discussion on this in the forums to)

I feel the craving for space sim like this, but it is uninstall for me now and maybe in a year or so i may have forgotten the complications it brings and try again.

I wish i could recommend it, and can overlook a bunch of the little nigles, but after a while they just added up too far. The thing that really was the final nail for me is learning that it is impossible to drop cargo from a ship without having to edit the game files. In a game like this, that's just stupid, and along with all the other things jjust make it impossible. If you find it for 5 or 6 bucks grab it for a few hours of entertrainmen, but not for full price.