Evochron Mercenary - The next evolution of Freelancer?

My Steam news feed informed me today about the release of an Indie space-based action-RPG called Evochron Mercenary.  I watched the trailer video and it looked like what I would imagine a Freelancer sequel would look like.

If the entire universe looks like this... count me in.

A few of the Friday Night Gamers started playing Freelancer back in the day for a couple of months and had a ball with it.  I would love to see how this one is.

Like Freelancer, you explore the universe, take on various kinds of missions (both with and without combat), do trading, etc. to enable you to upgrade your aircraft and equipment, letting you further explore new places.

From what I understand, it also allows you to integrate your solo play with multiplayer (using your same character in both.)

I can't afford it yet, but I've got my eye on it for when I can... I'd love to hear from those that already own and play it how much you enjoy it or not.  Please feel free to leave some comments and let us know if it would be a good game to add to the FNG arsenal.

Also, FNGers, please chime in and let me know if you'd like to see this as one of the games we play as a group.