Story? What story. Kill stuff, win. Ta-da! It won't win any narrative awards. You're not here for that.
Rouge-Like? A little. Very little. You gain experience each time you die based on how well you performed that time. Experience unlocks different ships you can start with and purchase as you play. That's it. It's not a fast progression, either. Well, maybe it would be if I could live long enough to get through a few sectors and accumulate a higher score. That takes a dash of that FTL-style luck and some planning.
So why is it a 70-80% rated game that I'm calling generic but fun? The combat and ship customization.
Customization. I've only unlocked one additional ship, but I can see where they're going with customization. It's not wildly in-depth - but it exists and it's functional, which is mostly what I look for. It's boring to have no control over your starship loadout and just buy new hulls to get better. It's more interesting when you have to weigh and decide what kind of weapons or defenses to stick into your three kinds of loadout slots: Fighters, Weapons, and Defenses. Fighters are diverse enough - from point defense Laser drones to Missile bombers, they work for different tactical needs. Weapons come in an array of flavors, from beams to bolts to missiles and rockets. Defenses either act to attack anything that gets too close - missiles, fighters, or ships - or to bolster your shielding. Pretty generic, but functionally smooth and familiar. Not once did I find myself wondering what did what or why, but rather "Oh, I want to try this. And that. And those" My favorite weapon so far was one called a "Deathray" that I had to save up a pile of upgrade points to purchase. So far, it's living up to the name...
Moving across the map is simple - click a sector, activate warp. You can see the number of hostiles there before you jump in, and whether or not they're moving in or out of that sector. Sometimes it's worthwhile to wait for someone to come to you to help split up fights, and there are even distress beacons you salvage off enemy ships that can be activated to lure hostiles into an ambush you set up (generally using an allied ship or station to help you fight).
Combat is really the core of the game and why you double-click the icon on your desktop. It plays out in a slow overhead view. No class of weapon is categorically better than another - but you will find or buy some pretty interesting or powerful ones as you go. You can tactically control all three of your ships (I'm not sure if you ever get more) - from establishing their initial formation, to directing your fighters to move forward and attack, to overriding auto-fire (by default, everything attacks whatever is closest) and force your big guns to fire on an enemy carrier instead of the fighter swarm it released. There are weapons that bypass shields, so triple-stacking shields isn't a perfect defense. It's entirely possible to simply flee from combat and run to a safe sector or one with an allied station to heal - and you may find yourself doing this early and often if things are stacked against you.
As you survive, you acquire scrap and upgrade points. The game's only two forms of currency. Upgrade points are sometimes part of the cost for buying weapons at stations, and are needed to improve your existing equipment - like adding range to a laser, fire rate to a missile, or additional fighters to the wing. Scrap is used to purchase extra ships for your fleet and weapons from merchants.
The visuals are good for what they need to accomplish, and I can't speak to the audio as I've played only without sound.
There is a little bit of a learning curve. It's light. You'll die often as you learn, and it may be frustrating. That's normal. There is a tutorial, but it doesn't really prepare you for anything aside from showing you the controls. The big things to grasp are staying at a good range for your loadout and knowing when to run - the game doesn't help you with either of those. There's no physics hurdle or complex synergy between ships that needs to be understood.
Your score is an accumulation of the ships you killed and resources you acquire with the number of turns you spent subtracted. Efficiency is key to a higher score. Fluffing around and going back and forth is key to a lower score, but also sometimes helps with survival as you can return to any sector - like one with a Battlestation, where you can heal up for free or buy a weapon you maybe couldn't afford before.
My biggest gripe is that the game is best played on Fast Forward. I think this should be the default speed - with one below it and one above it in addition to Pause. Ships plod along at the default speed and it can be tedious trying to get somewhere in a map even on Fast Forward, like fleeing from an enemy or moving to a station so it can help defend you.
So - it's a simple game without huge depth, but it's fun to get into fights and plays light. I spent all of last night playing it, and as bed time approached, I kept saying to myself "Just one more fight" until I was 25 minutes past midnight and cutting deeply into my sleep time. I suppose I enjoyed it, and I'd give it a solid 70% as a simple "space combat game" - That's not a 70% as a complex space RTS or FTL-clone. If you go in looking for that, you'll be disappointed. You probably won't spend hundreds of hours playing it - but it is a fun time killer and can be picked up and put down easily. Thankfully, the price starts at $10 and sales do happen. I wouldn't have regretted it at $10, but my gaming money may be worth less to me than yours. GreenGoo might refuse to buy it unless it was $2, for example.
*Edit 2018-09-25: For the last few days, this is all I've played and I'm still enjoying it. It's basic and it lacks depth, but it's fun to watch things blow up and defy the odds. In all this time, I've only beaten the game once. It took a good bit of FTL-style luck to acquire enough of the right weapons to do it.
The ships you get keep getting more powerful, and there are even "hidden" ships you have to get 10 parts of a blueprint to unlock.
I had an excellent run last night with one of my newly unlocked ships - but it was ended abruptly when I warped into the middle of an enemy furball and my flagship died before the warp timer recharged. Note: You can select which segment of the map you warp into, and it would make sense to always pick an empty corner if you're doing well. No reason to tempt fate.