I don't hate eurogames and I don't like bloated 8-hour-monsters, so I'm not actually an ameritrash fanboy as such, but I don't think Eclipse is a good game.
The most serious crime of Eclipse, in my opinion, are its victory conditions.
In good engine-building games (think Race for the Galaxy and Civilization: the Board Game) you build a system which somehow converts game resources into victory. In Eclipse, on the other hand, the victory conditions are a mere checklist, which isn't tied to everything you do in any meaningful way. So instead of pursuing an actual strategy, in last turns you just abandon everything and rush to satisfy a list of abstract conditions, from meaninglessly leaving and settling planets to buying lots of useless technologies.
Meh.
The most serious crime of Eclipse, in my opinion, are its victory conditions.
In good engine-building games (think Race for the Galaxy and Civilization: the Board Game) you build a system which somehow converts game resources into victory. In Eclipse, on the other hand, the victory conditions are a mere checklist, which isn't tied to everything you do in any meaningful way. So instead of pursuing an actual strategy, in last turns you just abandon everything and rush to satisfy a list of abstract conditions, from meaninglessly leaving and settling planets to buying lots of useless technologies.
Meh.