To all the people complaining about the "excessive" cost of Rebellion I would like to say: you bought Sins or its expansions or Trinity for a price you obviously thought was worth it. You will make the same decision about Rebellion. Now, without even seeing the amount of content in Rebellion, you are complaining about the price. I know we would all like to have cheap games, but games require programming. Programming requires programmers, which require money to hire. Now, I just bought SoaSE: Trinity from the stardock store (I am trying to avoid Steam), and when I begin playing in a few weeks, I am pretty sure I will be happy with my purchase. I encourage stardock to make a great game, as Frogboy said, and I'm pretty sure I will buy Rebellion for $40. Of course, if the Diplomacy server were shut down soon after Rebellion came out, that would be bad, but I am pretty sure stardock, with its reputation for excellent service, would not do that for at least a few years yet.
I could also point out that people on the internet are complaining about CoD: MW3 (I haven't played it) being a "copy and paste," yet it is selling for full price, which I believe is about $60. I'm not sure where some peolpe think money comes from for game companies. Stardock is a business. Just try spending months developing a game, and then release it for $25. I have high hopes for Rebellion, and think it could well be worth $40.
Edited for grammar, spelling, and logic...good greif 