Kinda surprised I didn't see a thread here.
So, yesterday the multiplayer beta started for the standard beta backers. I just played it for about 10 minutes before going to bed, but it looks gorgeous and plays well.
There's definitely a lot of depth, and many buttons to learn. There's not really any tutorial yet, so most of the things you either have to find out yourself or check using let's plays or something.
Here's some video's in case anyone's interested: http://elite.frontier.co.uk/media/#video-gallery
At the moment it seems to be a mix between a sim and a actiongame. Looking forward to playing more. Any of you playing?