I got to hand it to them though. The illusion is friggin' great. Even I, as a longtime critic, were impressed by the demo because it showed how games may look in not too distant future. I'm not too worried about "big and empty" though, as thats how most games are. Morrowind and "outlander" anyone? If this would be a functional game, I would love swooping down from space, navigating through a city with some points of interest and perhaps some kind of "sector" or address system generated by a mission, chasing down a criminal on foot. In fact it reminded me of an old sci fi setting 3d game on pc or amiga (90's) where you are some kind of police or bounty hunter, flying around in a city. If anyone remembers what the name is, that would be really cool.
Anyhow. SC is probably NOT the game that will achieve this goal, and like Derek stated, where did the SPACE sim part go? It seems like that part is all but secondary right now, which is a derail of epic proportions. Really not the game I supported in the first place.