As Quintin Smith puts it, Race for the Galaxy divides people into those who see the game for the work of genius it is, and assholes. Or as cageybb likes to say, you don’t really understand Race for the Galaxy until you’ve played it a couple hundred times.
The brilliance of RFTG is that it’s such a quick play that it forces you to be extremely strategic in that you better pick a path quickly, and get it established and going within a few turns or you’re done. The good news is that even if you lose, the game is over quickly and you’re ready to play again. It’s a card game but not exactly a deck-building game since you have a tableau you put down in front of you. It has a great space exploration feel to it, and gives you the option of going with developments, with producing goods and consuming them, or with military as a few available broad strategies. It’s probably best as a 2-player game but also works well with 3 or 4. Both groups play this one, with Cagey totally dominating it online.