At the end of the day Battlestation is an enjoyable top down space shooter with slow moving capital ships under your command rather than fast fighters zipping quickly along. With each completed play through you get XP which unlocks additional ships you can play as (you start with one ship each game and can but up to two more during each play through.) And this mechanic is the cause of the two star reduction. Problem #1: The new ships aren't different, or better yet, worse/weird alternatives to the starting ship, as often the unlocks are in FTL. They are better than the starting ship. Problem #2: The fastest way to gain XP is to die as fast as possible, start a new game and repeat. This is because the game has three game modes (easy, medium & hard) each of which gives you an XP bonus of (500-1000 XP.) That's right, a fixed XP bonus not a percent increase. The fastest way to get XP is just to die, take your bonus, start a new game, die, take your bonus... etc. This is particularly frustrating as the later ships are better, so if you have any power gaming tendencies you have to constantly fight them in order to want to live and win rather than die and lose, because dying and losing is better. Cheers. To end on a positive note: The fundamental gameplay is great. It is fun. I enjoy the game itself. However the XP system rewards the wrong gameplay and it constantly frustrates me that the best way to get the next cool shiny ship is to play in the least fun manner possible.
