First let me start by saying I'm a big fan of galciv2 and think that galciv3 is shaping up nicely, but if I'm honest it doesn't look to me like its going to be ready for full comercial release by may 15 which I've heard is the target.
In its current form there are lots of bugs, glitches and performance issues which as a long time fan of the series I'm happy to overlook particularly as it in beta and this is to be expected.
There are also I think a couple of major issues and design decisions that will be off putting to new players, in particular;
1) planetary events often make no sense for synthetics and can also give mechanical penalties and bonuses that mean nothing to synthetics either.
Fixing that I think is currently seen as something that can be patched post release. That means it will be mentioned in most if not all reviews as a fault with the game, not really wise.
2) when I research a new version of a building it doesn't appear in my colony build list, I have to build the base building it replaces then it gets auto updated. The issue with this design decision is that to first time players it looks like a bug where new buildings you research arent appearing in your build list.
Most of us beta testers and of course the fokes at stardock might not see the potential for confusion here as we have played the game so much already.
In short I'm worried this game will be released before it's ready because we beta testers give stardock to much confidence its ready to go because we are having so much fun with It. For a beta it is fun but will it really be ready in a month? I sort of doubt it.