I feel the pedantic need to point out that (contrary to one post) you can take control of your empire and disable the AI. There's a little check box to do so for each planet you control. The fact that someone was confused about this, however, illustrates MOO3's biggest problem. It's not, as one poster surmised, a matter of people calling this a "spreadsheet" because it was too hard, it's a very convoluted interface that weighs on your very soul at times. Yes, you can take complete control and not delegate planetary operations to your "viceroy", but do you really want to?
It's not the worst game ever, and $10 may not be the worst price to find out if you happen to be MOO3 material. I give it an average score - this game can easily go either way.