Well, I've been secretly suspecting that something closed (NDA agreement, etc.) might be coming in the next few months depending on how far along the aliens are, but a public test is probably out of the question for the foreseeable future.
A public test should both:
- Serve a functional purpose, and
- Accurately reflect the final state of the game (as Rota has stated before)
As it currently stands, the Dev tracker would seem to indicate that AAA is still finding plenty of bugs to fix on their own. Holding any kind of testing session probably wouldn't be beneficial at this point. Once most of the features & content are roughed in, and most of the obvious bugs have been squashed, then it will be time for alpha testers to see how "monkey-proof" the software is. Things like stressing the netcode, seeing how the servers behave under heavy load, and testing different settings on different hardware.
I can wait if it means that the end game will be worthy as a spiritual successor.