It's a good review, although personally I think you could have added a few screenshots of the ship builder in action, because reading about what it can do and seeing a picture of it really are two different things.
I agree with you on the diplomacy side of things. No other 4x (or any form of strategy game I can think of) has allowed me to maintain a small fleet and yet still completely dominate the galaxy, purely by economic and technological superiority. Civ just doesn't cut it as far as evil manipulation goes (talking about single player here, you can be perfectly evil in multiplayer).
I do, however, disagree with you on the subject of campaign. While I dislike the campaign itself, it's due to its linear nature, as opposed to the fact it's unbeatable. Time investment and turtling tactics have meant I have, repeatedly, trashed the Dread Lords outright. For one, maximised soldiering techniques mean they can't conquer your planets. And using other races as shields allows you to keep researching better technology in order to crush the DL without a problem. (A favourite tactic of mine is to get edge worlds that are hard to get to, then seal myself in while researching away and allowing my allies to fend off the dread lords)
I would recommend playing around with "Dread Lords on Parade" scenario, as that means you start off from the bottom but have the full tech tree, which allows you to perfect the methods of defeating them. By "methods" I mean speed and soldiering. If you strike fast, they can't build a foothold. If you have powerful soldiering, their ten troops aren't enough for your two thousand, not by a long shot. Recapturing DL planets and taking Doom Ray technology is a giant bonus too, especially since that planet is now top of the line and capable of producing vast state-of-the-art dreadnaughts.
Back onto the topic of your review, I'm also a bit surprised you left out a key part of the game: Modding. This can be a plus or minus really, as it requires mucking around in the XML files, which some people don't like to do very much. However, considering you can write your own races, give them attributes, backstory, ships, a home system, and whatever, it's a fairly nice thing to cover.
Having rambled on, I'll go back to my point. It's a good review, and I look forward to reading more of your stuff.
