-The game is not very beginner friendly. For the first game, the only guidance you receive is through quests. While they provide incentives and goals to accomplish, I've had to use several pages of wiki to guide myself through the early game. The game gives a ton of free choice for players, even at the beginning, but also no easely obtainable information ingame whereas to where one can obtain certain resources.
-Navigating menus is painful and annoying. The research menu has no search function, and you'll be spending a lot of time scrolling through every printer to try and find out if you've researched something or not. Once you've confirmed you researched it, you'll get to look for it again several times as you try to figure out what machine and what resources you need for it.
I apreciate the ability to open 2 menus total on the right and left side of the screen. Can be very helpful, but leaving the menu on the right is absolutely annoying for no good reason. Pressing anywhere on the screen, or F (interact button) will usually collapse the menu on the left, but spamming either will not close the menu on the right. You have to click in 1 specific place, and sometimes the right keybind (LMB or F). The UI in this game is made so as to fit in the theme, which is great, but it is awkward to navigate. I have a potato pc and often while trying to empty my inventory will randomly drop some stuff onto the floor or close the menu because I happen to click on the edge of the item, collapsing the inventory menu.
-The game is payed, has several DLC's, but the devs still added an ingame shop for good measure. From what I read, the only way to get this 'exoshop' currency (qbits) is by spending real money (on a game you payed for), so you can unlock cosmetics. You obtain some qbits from the start to incourage spending, as the 150qbits I got (which I did not pay for) are not nearly enough to unlock anything. The lowest item is worth at leasst 300qbits.
+Audio design is magnificent and satisfying to listen to. Music and sound effects are worth listening to. It makes mining very satisfying.
+The game is immersive. The lack of UI, handholding from the game, model designs and animations, and finally sound design make for an immersive experience. If you are not spending time fighting menus, the game is very satisfying to play in my opinion.
+Multiplayer experience is satisfying. I've received this game by a friend. For the first game I started solo and tried figuring out the game myself. The lack of general information provided by the game (necessitating having several tabs of wiki) made me quit once I built a shuttle for a quest. The massive amount of free choice thereon made me quit before even going to orbit. Playing with a friend who knows a good amount about the game makes playing much more bearable. Emoting can be fun, and being with 1 or more people allows for some delegation of tasks, making the game overall less tedious.
Overall I don't recommend this game. I do apreciate that the game does not feel like it is forcing you to do anything, but the lack of guidance for beginners (me, still) and the absolute pain I experience both trying to interact and navigate the menus, and closing them makes playing this game more tedious than it is worth in my eyes.
