What's most interesting about this expansion is that it shows off the game’s new direction. A complaint with the original release was that despite their visual (and minor statistical) differences, all the various ships in the game were basically the same—you took a hull, bolted a bunch of turrets and some devices to it, and you were done. With The Order's new ships, you'll find they're the only ones that can actually take advantage of the new weapons, and in addition their ships have much stronger power generation than those from other races, although they're a good deal slower in exchange. I feel this was a good development call, because to be honest I like the aesthetics of the ships from other races (the "Rebels" in particular) so much more than those of The Order that I probably would've never touched them beyond a couple of initial sessions if there wasn't any other reason to do so.

I don't mean that as a slam (I've always had a bias towards ships that "look" the coolest regardless of performance - take it as a personal failing), but rather a comment towards how badly the game needs to capitalize on its diversity a bit more.

The same goes for the missions too - sure, the varied environments all have a different visual style and little nuances to them (like some where shield effectiveness is reduced due to spatial anomalies) and this expansion even adds one with a cool asteroid field in it, but aside from this each level is pretty much the same; you put together a fleet and see if it can beat whatever ships the other side throws at you. Even the wave-based challenge modes don't offer much more in the form of gameplay variety - the true depth of the game still lies in the 'preparation' for battle where you spend a ton of time customizing your individual ships and trying to figure out what orders to give your fleet before hitting that big scary "Start" button.

The game still lacks a true storyline-oriented campaign mode (which is either going to bug you to no end or you’re going to have too much fun killing stuff to care). That said, there needs to be more variety to the mission types and some kind of real-time multiplayer functionality at some point in the future, but despite what I personally feel are a few imperfections, frankly I can't see any other way to sum the game up than "stupidly fun" and it is clearly worth the $5.99 price tag. Positech Games is really onto something here and I can't wait to see what comes next. Now go build your ships and watch the fireworks.