The original Reach For The Stars was released in 1983. It became an instant classic, and can fairly be said to have started a genre of 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) space games.
Species are fundamentally different so that what works in one circumstance won't work in another. Even species with similar biologies, such as Humanity and The Combine, have very different emphases in their technological development which lead to divergent strengths and weaknesses.