Played Eclipse at the weekend

Hi all,
Got to play Eclipse yesterday and enjoyed it, for me it doesnt quite live up to the hype (which has been huge) but a great game none the less.

Couple of pointers:-
- with the players boards and the playing board its gets pretty big, just about managed on a large dining table with five people !
- theyve failed to have any 'next turn' counters so we had to scribble on paper. when you pass then that determines your place in the next round, standard rules i think indicates that only the first person to pass does this and everyone follows clockwise but we did our own turn system whereby if you past 3rd you go 3rd next round etc. believe this is also on geek and theres some counters to print out to help
- 30 mins per person is nonsense especially for firt time ! with five players should of been 2.5 hours but was more like 4 ! that said once everyone knows the rules i guess you could get it down to 30-40 mins per palyer
- big battles towards the end did get a little drawn out and tiresome (war of attrition)
- rules do appear to be quite simple...................does that mean i can talk someone throuhg how to play it absolutely not but thats a reflection on my abilities not the rules

For anyone looking to spend almost as much money on player mats as they did the actual game:

http://www.boardgameguru.co.uk/e-raptor--eclipse-large-tableau-22297-p.asp