My thoughts on Gal Civ III at it's current state after playing my first game, teamed up with a friend:

• Enjoyed it, despite the warning about the lack of fun in the testing phase.

• Definitely Alpha. Features missing (victory notification, custom ship building, victory types except war, diplomacy).

• My friend came across a couple of technical issues (one crash and some graphical glitches). Ran perfectly for me.

• A.I. was stupid - but not sure if that's because alpha A.I. or because they were set to beginner. Planets were also taken over with one ship each time, but that may be due to A.I. being set to beginner/us being far ahead on tech.