It takes a while to get used to for sure. Supposedly some of the maps were made bigger and stuff, but I don't think UI change was drastic.
The combat element and the exploration element was fun but the navigation and ship assignment reminded me too much of EVE Online. It was so difficult to get it running well and to search for places to buy and sell to that I eventually stopped playing. what changed? I found that the worst part was trying to assign orders to my wings to consolidate my ships or to start trade routes. I've heard whispers that this game had a better interface than X3:TC.
X3:TC, while having a lot of objects on screen at once, isn't exactly extremely beautiful or anything and I had to turn a lot of options down on a 2008-late era iMac. wish I would have stuck with the Windows one and did Boot Camp. I bought X3:TC on the App Store for Mac and I think the performance is abysmal compared to the Windows version based on what I've heard.
