I purchased the expansion and played a few hours with it. While I appreciate some of the new features and functionality, the pace of the game seems slow now. I am constantly running low on minerals because I have to pay 100 minerals to expand to any new system. My fleet size seems artificially low with under 100 ships even after many starbase bumps. Research is taking far longer than it was and this is with a civilization with massive bonuses to research.
The universe is not filling out quickly either. If you wind up next to one of those marauder civilizations it will literally be hundreds of years before you are able to do anything about it.
It all seems a bit glacial.