Thanks for the review. I hope both games are still available, i am still in a "Wing Commander" mode after watching the animated series and just replayed WC4, so I may go for Starlancer.
StarLancer is an enjoyable game, you'll probably like it. It's not Wing Commander quality by any stretch of the imagination though, and the blatant Cold War era "Evil Russian/Chinese/Middle Easterners" stereotype gets annoying, even though I think it's intentional. And I never did get around to playing Freelancer.
Personally, for space games outside of Wing Commander I turn to Homeworld 2 and Freespace.