October 24th isn’t THAT far away… right?
I never played Alpha Centari, so the Sci-Fi theme here is something new to look forward to for me. I also think the setting will allow the devs to bring in some ideas that otherwise might not have ‘fit’ into the traditional realistic setting.
Hardcore Casual 
Yeah, definitely on my list. I will buy this, it is just a matter of finding out if I can wait until the Steam Holiday sale. Given how Sid Meier games go, the game will likely have the “okay, it works now” patch, so delay might not be bad.
Alpha Centauri was good, and had a lot of features that I wish they had put into Civ II. But the alien world thing never quite sat well with me. The purple landscape and the made up factions were a bit of a drag, and there was, perhaps, a bit too much freedom in designing and upgrading units. And they locked it into a max resolution of 1280×1024, so it looks ugly on my current monitor.
Definitely on my list.
Absolutely on the list, I hope I can hold out for the sale, though.
I accidently found Pandora: First Contact on stea, it looks suspiciously like Beyond Earth, so if you have itch for SiFi Civilization, maybe game worth a look. http://store.steampowered.com/app/287580/