Now that the game has been out for a while, what are peoples experiences?
I've been painting far more than playing, but I'm quite impressed with most of the minis and the rules are good. Not great, but good. The basic game mechanics work well and the pacing seems okay, albeit perhaps a bit too bloody and fast for my tastes. Greatest weaknesses IMO are that movement is rather unimaginative since almost all ships maneuver similarly and has barely a nod to it being actual space combat (ie no real inertia, no rolling or flipping ships, etc), and the scenarios are all exceeding similar. They play fine, but they're all perfectly symmetrical and are clearly designed to be tournament-friendly. That's really silly considering this game is about planetary invasions where one would reasonably expect attacker and defender to have very different forces and setups. If nothing else, why aren't the defenders (not always the Scourge despite this being the Reconquest) allowed some starting troops on the ground?
That said, DfC clearly has potential for expansion and refinement, and none of its flaws are severe enough to require a hasty second edition. It doesn't do anything except the planetary invasion/orbital combat and lacks any kind of ship customization/building rules so it's no Full Thrust/Starmada/A Sky Full of Ships/etc, but what it does try to do it does well.
As far as painting figs for resale goes they've been a gold mine for me, so I've got financial reasons to like the game.
Are the factions balanced?
Within the context of the existing scenarios, probably. Looking at the community on the Hawk forums and other online sites there's quite a bit of pessimism about PHR being undergunned, but I don't see it. They're insanely tough, and offensive combat effectiveness is not as vital in this game as in most. You win by getting victory points on turns 4 and 6, and the only ways to do that are to get troops on the ground (or space paltforms) and crowding living ships around critical locations. Blowing up the enemy is something you're doing solely to limit their ability to do those things better than you.
I suspect the Shaltari (and maybe PHR) may be broken if they build skew lists with maxed-out troop carrier choices and minimal combat ships, but haven't tested it enough yet to be sure. A lot of it comes down to their teleport tricks (or the combat effectiveness of the troopships in PHR) and I may be seeing a problem that doesn't exist.
How is the support from Hawk?
Terrible. They've shafted many of the KS backers, they're not answering questions with any kind of speed, and I've been waiting months to even register on their forums, leaving in lurker limbo. I know they're a small company and lack staff, but when I compare their performance to Privateer, Ground Zero, Rebel, either Brigade, Warlord, and other favorite companies they're barely at GW levels of helpful.
Also having some problems keeping up with demand from retailers, as the distribution net is on-and-off for stock. That probably ties to the KS problems, and should sort itself out eventually.