Aveweto: i own both, i love both but empire at war is always a small step ahead coz of the tactical parts and the space combat mixed with ground action
I didn't like space nor ground combat; I found them very simple, especially the ground combat because you cannot build anything. That wouldn't be bad if the game was a tactical TBS but unfortunately it is not. In paper, the gameplay sounds good but, ultimately, I was dissapointed. Without exaggerating, the only good thing I find to the game is it's box art & it's manual (I own the retail DVD version without the expansion).
tinyE: I have both and while I think the space battles in EAW are hands down the best anywhere (mostly because they are all to scale which is totally fucking amazing) but the ground stuff tends to get pretty boring for me pretty fast.
I agree, the sense of scale is very good in space battles but in the end, i found them just as boring as the ground battles.