Got my copy of Billion Suns yesterday. Reading through it now. I think I like the premise.
You;d have to ask the test crew that tried it to be sure, but I think we liked it overall.
It REALLY needed a re-editing, but part of that is how strong the boardgame piece of it is. That layer, it's central conceit, will get missed by people (me) who are looking for a straight-forward space PEWPEW game like
Full Thrust or
SFB.