Stellaris is one of those games that even with 1000 hours I can still learn more about it each play-through. It is intricately designed, well balanced, and engaging throughout the entire early, mid, and late game. Although the gameplay can get repetitive between the tedious tasks of managing your empire, the game always gives you alternative things you can do to explore and develop the game in fun and exciting ways.

While the game when you first start can be a little overwhelming to learn, it does a good job explaining the core concepts behind every aspect while also allowing room for your to improve and develop your own playstyle within each of these aspects of the game. I would say there is plenty to do and learn even if you don't have any DLC's (Which are all really great btw), and the updates are always very cool and change the game in interesting and unique ways. I especially really enjoyed the Overlord update introducing all the cool things that came with becoming the Crisis or the Galactic Emperor.

Multiplayer is also really fun, as its not a turn based so you are all simultaneously witnessing and influencing the game at the same moment which is really just an awesome experience. The only downsides for multiplayer are that you do need all your Players to be on at the same time in usually pretty long sessions (1-8 hours) in order to make any real progression, so scheduling can be a ♥♥♥♥♥. Also make sure that you are running the game on good wifi as the lag and bugs that can come from bad ping can be quite burdensome at times.

Overall, a really fun space-strategy game that I still to this day spend a lot of time playing. 9/10.

(Note: Stellaris also supports mods! I highly recommend playing gigastructures once you get more experienced and comfortable at the game)