Yes, I agree. My wife and I fired it up for the first time last night: Federation and Klingon alliance. We thoroughly enjoyed it. I am an old Stellaris player, but my wife has never played it before. The learning curve for her was steep, but after an hour or so she really embraced it. The Federation is very forgiving for new players.
We played it on easy and to my mind, it was far too easy. But being her first game it was the right call. The next game we play I will beef the difficulty up considerably.