I feel like I could write a novel about this game (not everything would be positive, but some would be).
I'd have to backtrack a bit to the things that I was actually expecting out of it, but didn't end up that way (or, at least not 'exactly' the way I expected):
º Expected (generally-speaking) much smaller planets (and moons). / They ended up being immeasurably larger (even a 'moon' feels like it never ends). This, to me, is perhaps more of a negative than a positive (although it's not the worst of negatives I can think of, simply because we don't have to explore them all in their individual entirety). When Sean advertised the planets to be "planet-sized planets", he wasn't joking. I genuinely thought that it truly was him trying to make the game sound impressive ahead of time. I thought "ok, Sean please... planet-sized planets?; what, it's going to be like Earth on a 1:1 scale size kinda thing? yeah, no, that's just you trying to sell it... right? ...r-right?" Well. I don't think it's something along the lines of Earth-sized on a 1:1 scale (probably not... surely not). But damn... I could - if I truly wanted to - just stay on my starting planet and possibly never be able to fully explore it on foot, even by ship (I mean looking for Every. Single. Thing. to discover; be it outposts, ruins, caves, fauna, etc). At most I might be able to do that on two planets if I had a crap load of time (like... a year maybe?). It's really, really big and most players will just stay around the same spot(s), or 'regions' before they decide it's enough and it's either time to stop playing, or leave the planet to find something new to look at.
º Expected less exaggerated and arcade'ish take on what I'd consider 'plausible' combinations. The gist is: the algorithm was essentially left unchecked (or I don't know... it was badly or barely monitored is another way to put it). For example, being on an extremely-hot planet where the lowest temperature averages in the 85+ºC, and where regular 'heat storms' bring it up to a live oven at 295ºC; but there's a decent amount of fauna just walking around doing their stuff (even during the storms) and, according to the animal's description (when scanning them) they apparently feed on 'vegetation' (vegetation, on a planet's surface with temps like that 24/7 even during night time... sure; why the heck not).
I knew of course that it wasn't going to be a simulation, and Sean Murray mentioned a couple of times that it was more of an 'arcady take' on "reality" (such as planet distances within a system; although that one is a positive in my book... wouldn't want to take a week in real-time to reach a "nearby" planet in a video game, no time for that). However, those seemingly small 'details' such as the one I mentioned (but there's a good bunch more) sort of invalidate the would-be presence of any "logical" patterns within the algorithm that's responsible for putting things together. Obviously, that algorithm is about as good as the coder(s) tempers with and builds or modifies it. But I would have expected their team (or Sean, at least) to have thought about "things like that". Such as if there's fauna on an extremely-harsh (and hot) planet, then only allow them to spawn near caves, in order for said life forms to enter and stay inside the cave during storms... if the A.I. can even detect caves to start with (and ensure that the life form is small enough to actually fit in most cave's sizes). Additionally, on that basically-boiling planet I've been on, not only is there fauna to start with, but there's flying animals too. The audio and visual effects during storms clearly suggest (well, it clearly shows) that the winds are very strong, that the heat is certainly oppressive and lethal at best, and that essentially nothing would survive that much heat to start with (295º+C), much less would be able to just stand there flying above peacefully circling non-stop as if nothing was happening.
Details, I know. They were a small team, sure. But damn, it doesn't just "feel" like it, but it demonstrates that the algorithm that they ended up 'finalizing' just literally throws ALL combinations together with perhaps minimal actual thought put into the 'logical' aspects of some of those condition combos. And I'm not talking about the visual variety that combinations create, that's fine (heck it's even beautiful at times). I'm just referring to the illogical combinations that the algorithm comes up with, and how - somehow - the devs definitely overlooked some inevitably-ludicrous results because not looked for, because not "thought about", or because they didn't have the time during development to do it (or not enough men for that task, etc). So, regardless of what the reason(s) would be behind that, I find it really tough sometimes to press all my suspension of disbelief against what I simply know is the result of the "unchecked / miss-monitored" algorithm. S'not like it was Sean sitting there at his desk during development who said to himself "alright, let's make sure that everything that doesn't make sense can also make it into the final version". He, or the rest of the team just didn't have the time to (I'm guessing), or perhaps (I suppose) would have never expected those sort of combinations to even exist?... but I would highly doubt that to be the case. They created the assets pool to start with, they had to know what would and could be picked, and how it'd be mixed together (potentially) by the algorithm. And out of those possibilities, some would have had to stand out like sore thumbs; they had to.
º Expected much less things-to-discover on planets (generally-speaking). And that's because as mentioned in my first point, I did not originally expect planets to be that big to start with. However, with those average planet sizes I was thinking (during the very first couple of hours of play) that I wouldn't find an outpost, ruin, downed drop pod (or whatever they're called, the ones that give blueprints; not the bigger 'intact' ones with Exosuit upgrades in them), Exosuit upgrade pod, or mineral deposits Every. Goddamn. Hundred. Meters. from me in any direction, on foot or by ship. And, just in case some people here reading can't understand the concept of figurative speech, I'm not actually saying that I discover those things every actual hundred meters (just making sure that I won't get disciplined about this by the Literal Police that keeps lurking around the corners here). My point is, there's too much stuff everywhere, generally-speaking. So here's the thing: what is the point of having such gigantic planets, if you're going to jampack them with something to find every length of a football field? Why do even 'barren' planets need to have thousands of outposts of all types? Why do every planet and moon need to have hundreds of Exosuit upgrade pods scattered all around the place? Why do every planet contain something like what seems to be a quarter of their total surface area with Plutonium? (that's figurative again, the gist is... there's too much of everything, everywhere).
Just on my starting planet, doing fast flybys of the surface in straight lines for a minute in any direction had me in disbelief of how many small, medium or large outposts, ruins and other things came up constantly. It's basically like that almost everywhere and on all the 9 or 10 planets / moons I've been on so far. Alright, so there's 18 quintillion of them; that should mean that there has to be at least one of them out there that has next to no outposts or alien ruin, right? I do see that they took the time to - at least - create a 'scale' of quantities of things for planets. For example (can't recall by heart as I'm typing this) you'd have a level of "Plentiful" fauna, or "Empty" flora, and something along the line for the Sentinels too (which by the way is also something I find to be way too common... but more on those below). However, there's no scaling / level for alien ruins, or outposts. So for example when you first land on a new planet, you know how much (or little) there's fauna and flora on it... but it simply says nothing concerning the ruins and the outposts (or the drop pods, etc). Now I know, those are the ones that should be 'found', and perhaps no hint as to their 'quantity' should be given in order to create an incentive to look for them to start with. At least that's what I imagine the intention to be behind the lack of more varied planetary information. The thing is, even if I was to land on a planet and it'd tell me that there's 'scarce' presence of outposts... I would still have to search for them to actually find them. It would not remove or decrease the very aspect and act of exploration.
But here I am on that super-hot planet (the latest I've been exploring, and still on it in my current game) where almost nothing should exist except for rare (and rarely-spawned) minerals, caverns and nearly-melted rock formations on the surface, but filled with outposts and ruins and pods... and animals, everywhere. There's not even a 'spot' on the planet where there's literally nothing. There's always minerals or at least a small (even abandoned) outpost pretty much every kilometer at max (and minerals pretty much every 50 meters or so; there's never going to be a moment when you scan on foot for minerals and literally NO icons would appear... nope, there's something everywhere, every time, in all directions). I would not mind if I was to land on an actual barren planet where I'd find just a couple of minerals-rich 'spots', but with literally no outpost (not even a single one). Those should exist too. Now the BIG (really) problem here is that there's 18 freakin' quintillion planets. So maybe, just maybe somewhere in the algorithm that sort of combination I'm actually sort of wanting now actually does exist (because the complete opposite has been given on all the planets I've seen so far, including ones from 'let's plays' on YouTube as well), however, the chances of me landing on such a world should not be nearly non-existent (but really, I think that all planets and moons are like that by now; it's a very strong gut feeling).
So, sure I do like landing on planets to see how they look, and how geologically they happen to be different from the previous one I was on. Sure I do like it to find new animals. But at this point, when I land on a planet I'm not even bothering with those "signal scanners" anymore (those hackable structures with a beam). I just get the inevitable Plutonium around, jump in my ship and fly low around zigzagin' a bit at medium speeds until I spot the equally-inevitable structures down there that just popped into view. If there's no landing pad no biggie, just keep flying until another one pops into view with one. Looking for a ruin? Do the same, just fly around and oh, what's that over there... another ruin. Need to upgrade your Exosuit? Fly just a tad bit more around than usual, and you'll surely spot that 34,677th drop pod from above (they do pop into view clearly enough to notice). The thing is I didn't just want to look at visually-different planets. I also wanted to really explore. You know, like doing flybys of the surface and realizing that I wouldn't find anything unless I kept doing it until I do find something, or until I would decide by choice to actually do bother with one of those signal scanners (which by the way are also too numerous anyway). In fact I was expecting to really search for minerals, like... you know, searching for them, for miles and miles (by foot or by ship, either way). The way it is now is just land (anywhere), scan, oh... Plutonium over there, and those 'plants', that's Carbon right there... hmmm I think I need mor- oh nvm, I'll walk in this random direction for literally 10 seconds and scan again... oh look, more Plutonium (hmmmm what's that too, a downed pod with a blueprint, nice... wait there's actually another one over there too).
So yeah, too many things, everywhere. The actual exploration & discovery aspect of the game is greatly decreased due to the abundance of everything. Also, why is every one of those Exosuit pods seemingly intact and in perfect working condition? It's -100ºC, it's working. It's 300ºC, yup come in, that small shield door is enough, I'm gonna upgrade yo' Exosuit 'ma boy. High radiation levels, toxic rains? Dude, you have no idea about my build quality do you? Really, couldn't the devs even think about that? Not even just a bit? What about crashed ships that are not repairable? The signal that you found that points to that ship's location doesn't know if the ship in question is damaged to start with, it just could be a smoking wreck by now... or be stuck in an ice formation or something. Nope, you Can. Repair. Them. All., "progression system oblige".
º Expected the Sentinels to be "Space Police", sure, like Sean Murray did say a couple of times in interviews and video previews I watched. However, not to THAT extent. What ARE they and why are they also on EVERY bloody planet I've been on? Sure, I've had I think two planets where their presence level was set to something like 'Passive', but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. There's about as many of them as there are mineral deposits. And since they do seem to lurk around minerals, and since there's minerals everywhere even on so-called 'barren' worlds, there's bound to be Sentinels everywhere too. I literally feel like I'm in Grand Theft Auto with those annoying pests around. It's a bit like I'll get a GTA star (in the form of a Sentinel) if I dare mining that innocent Plutonium crystal formation while there's that Sentinel about 50 meters away from me, and he'll just go "OMG something happened over there!!!", then frantically accelerates toward that now-mined formation's position, scans and then turns to me and scans me too and goes like "OK, it's alright... for this time!". Huh, thanks? C-can I mine the other formations too or ... or do I really have to kill a squad of your things again to have tranquility of mind for even just five minutes? There has to be more of those things than there were Reapers in the ME's universe. I don't mind their existence, but they shouldn't be that common, they shouldn't always conveniently spawn nearby within the minute of your presence after landing or exploring around, and they shouldn't just panic and come at you every time you mine that little rock over there for just enough Iron to fill the third of your left pant pocket. It's very annoying.
Anyways...
It's the usual story of expectations versus post-launch reality. I'm not even talking about the GUI, the "multi-player", the 'combat' mechanics nor the upgrades / progress system either. Now, I do sort of paint a negative portrait of No Man's Sky. But the truth is that I actually like the game. I don't "love" it, I do not think it's the second coming of Jesus Christ either. There are a lot of issues with it. But there's that one thing in NMS that - so far - hasn't been boring to do, and that (for me) is to have that 'magical' moment when I'm closing in on a new planet from space, with my own ship, doing the atmospheric entry process (which is brief but I find fun nonetheless) only to lay my eyes on a completely new-looking world. It's the "unknown" aspect of the whole thing, of what the game offers ultimately, that serves as the main meal; the incentive to keep playing. By "keep playing" I certainly don't mean to play constantly like eight hours a day until my blood stops circulating in my legs. What I mean is that since release I've played once every day and it wasn't a 'forced' choice due to would-be buyers remorse or because somewhere inside me I'd be saying something like "I wanted this game to be good and I can't accept its current state, therefor I'm gonna play it even if I don't like it". Nah, despite the numerous details and things I have "against" this game, it still manages to give me that sense of exploration (yes, despite the exploration-related issues on each planets I mentioned above) that quite frankly I didn't feel in a video game since a long time. I've had the feeling of true exploration in so few games out there (Super Metroid, Morrowind, Mass Effect 1 are some of the few select that currently come to mind even though there's a few more; but not many really) over the two decades of gaming I've had, but I'd say without exaggeration that No Man's Sky genuinely - at the very least - accomplishes that, and well-enough.
It's very difficult for me to actually "score" this game. And Sean Murray did mention recently that he'd bring more content and features in the future. Do I believe him? More or less. Do I want him to do that? Absolutely. Would I be 'interested' in anything regarding the future (growth and continued support and development) of NMS? Definitely. I see virtually infinite potential for this game. In my opinion it can only get better, rather than worse. And I'm keeping in mind that, apparently, the game is actually moddable (which comes as a complete surprise to me; quite the positive one too). Who knows, maybe in about a year or so from now we'll have our own space stations? Maybe we'll actually get to meet people and interact with them? Maybe we'll have our own fleets? Time will tell. But as of now if I really had to give it a score I'd go with a solid 7 / 10. I've played much, much worse out there, and many more games absolutely disappointed me; but, if anything, NMS feels like a somewhat dirty, and definitely uncut diamond right now.