not only is the romulan faction the new romulus not-romulans, but it is also a panda style mini-faction where you join either the KDF or the feds after lvl 10. seems to me like the worst of both worlds. Rather than doing a half-baked romulan faction, I would have prefered an expansion dedicated to completing the klingons.
Not being the Star Empire specifically dosn't bother me so much, I just hope that this republic doesn't turn out to be the new romulus romulans, or that they at least take them in in an anti-federation/KDF direction.
we don't really have quite enough information to draw a firm conclusion about whether the faction will be a "not-federation" yet, the freedom fighters reference could be interpreted in a few ways, the regime the page refers to could be a reference to a regime that governs in an increasingly "un-romulan" way and we could be…
pity we wont be playing the Romulan Star, I was hoping we would be playing a kind of restoration movent aiming to restore the empire to glory, reforming away the worse parts of the empire(reconciliation with remans etc.) and all that. I just hope the faction will be at least somewhat anti federation by the end.