Well, after spending 6 hours playing the new beta last night here are some thought on what I think is spot on!

(disclaimer:  these are only my personal opinions of the game.  Your opinions may vary and that's ok!  we're allowed to disagree.  If you don't like something that I do, please feel free to let your voice be heard, but respect the fact that I do enjoy it please.)

First, I love the graphical look of the game itself.  The way the map changes from landscape to a paper map when you zoom out is an excellent touch. I do think some of the information bars are hard to see with my aging eyes, but some gamma adjustment will probably solve that problem.

The city graphics are very pleasing, and I like the change  where buildings are upgraded to increase production, rather than spam building.  It just makes the cities themselves more pleasing to the eye and also increases the immersion factor for me.

I was amazed at how "alive" the world seemed to me, even in this early beta state.  Just watching my city grow gave the game life, but also the escort quests and seeing others wander around the map made me feel there was much going on in the world around me.

There is a wide variety of game customization available, and is much more than I had hoped.  I love the ability to customize units and your sovereign.  Not just by building the units "similar to Alpha Centauri" (which is a fantastic feature), but also the cosmetic appeal.  Yes, I am one of those people who enjoys customizing to the max.  It really lets me get attached to my "people" and gives the game a huge re-playability factor for me.

The tech tree is evolving nicely, although I am anxious to see the tree itself implemented.  The researching of the general topic is nice in that you can later pick the individual advancement in case your needs change in the time it takes you to research your advance.  It took me a bit to figure out this was the case, however.

I really like the dynasty aspect to the game.  This was one of the things that drew me to the game Europa 1400.  It gave me a grand sense of achievement.  I hope this section gets fleshed out quite a bit more.

Well, that's all I can think of for now.  I am going to go and give it another marathon run tonight and take some screen shots for a preview I am doing on my blog.  Happy gaming everyone!