I'll have to agree with this review, unfortunately. I purchcased this game elsewhere, but have upgraded with all the same patches as the GOG release. I tried this game about a year ago with a Radeon X1950, and it played well enough, but would randomly crash, usually upon entering or exiting a system. The load times were so long, I would often forget what I was doing before the crash.
I got a new video card just this week, a Radeon 4670, and tried again, but now am plagued with graphics glitches. Space will tremble and shake as though I'm being hit, when nothing is happening. it gives me a headache. Randomly, the halos and shadows that decorate objects in the game world will leap into the foreground, shrouding everything in fog. It's bizarre.
Given that I have had 2 different kinds of issues on the same machine with two graphics cards, I'm guessing that this game just doesn't know how to play nice with grahpics drivers or chipsets. Maybe it's better with nVidia, who knows.
Even without the problems, the game is very pretty, but has a bit of an empty feeling. It isn't the same caliber as other games at its price point on GOG, and I'm not really heartbroken that I can't get it to work.

I got a new video card just this week, a Radeon 4670, and tried again, but now am plagued with graphics glitches. Space will tremble and shake as though I'm being hit, when nothing is happening. it gives me a headache. Randomly, the halos and shadows that decorate objects in the game world will leap into the foreground, shrouding everything in fog. It's bizarre.
I would double check your install of the game. Part of the problems you describe are elements of the copy protection kicking in because it thinks you're using a pirated copy.

Haha, seriously? The copy protection will deliberately mess with the graphics without informing you as to why? I thought that sort of thing went out with games distributed on floppy diskettes.

Yes, we all want to see the next Privateer game. I even have it, sitting here on the computer desk, but I can't seem to make it work on my computer. Do you know how to make it work? Or perhaps we could pursuade GOG to do something about it?

DSO got a lot more enjoyable for me once I got the shield and energy flux modules, I don't know how I lived life without it...actually I do - I was getting blown outta space. The jerkiness of the fight sequences involving more than 7 or so ships and/or asteroids is annoying, and for some reason whenever I disengage the time accelerator the graphics and objects are all out of place (bad description but its hard to explain, basically I'm turning my ship in every direction and everything is outta whack) and it takes a minute to get back to normal.
Even without those few bugs the game is just quite plain; once you've seen one system you've basically seen them all. It's not like Freelancer where each system had its own feel and personality and there were numerous unique places to visit, with DSO I dont even pay much attention to the system or cluster names because they're all the same. The storyline is average with terrible voice acting as many have commented, and despite the variety of mission types in the end they are also quite repetitive. Besides, outside of the sheer joy of killing ships there seems to be no real reason to accept terminal missions when you can net 30K+ per run simply trading cargo between two systems with only a level 2 cargo computer.
The artifacts and ship/plasma upgrades were the most captivating, but otherwise this game lacks depth and falls short of the mark...to me there's no excuse for putting out a game like this when there were several other games of the genre already out and just waiting to be improved on (freelancer, privateer, etc.) If you are the first to do it then it's understandable, but when you as a game designer have multiple games to scrutinize and easily figure out what they did well and what they lacked, you've gotta come better than DSO.
Speaking of Privateer, unfortunately the only way to play it is on a Windows 98 system under the MS DOS prompt. You'll need a program like myjemm.exe (I think you can download it from www.wcnews.com) but it works great and I still play it to this day.

Provateer......... what a great game!! (tears of nostalgy)
I plaid those kind of games since the old old Elite.
Just a add: I found the X-Universe (X, X2, X3, X3 Terran Conflict) games a great substitute to the Wing Commander universe (and much much difficult).
I would love to find that a new Privateer game will be developed but..... as said before , still waiting since 1993

Man, have you not heard about X series ? This is for hardcore privateers, next gen stuff. Developed since 1995 IIRC by egosoft. I've been playing it since X2 The threat, but X3 Reunion, and Terran Conflict are just mind blowing, with such complexity that you'll spend months trying to get to some real money. They are all evolved around very good plot, of race lost in space after connection with earth has been destroyed. Really, every privateer fan should know this already. Give it a go, it's worth the money.
Also IIRC Egosoft is planning on releasing a new Super pack with all games in one package with many additonal scripts and goodies. http://www.egosoft.com