Having been across the galaxy, come back, and reached Elite, I can safely say there's a lot to do in this game. Totally worth it. I received Elite Dangerous as a gift and I've now done the same and gotten it for others because it was so much fun. Top notch space flight sim, very customizable control scheme. Getting it just how I like it was a big part of my early game.
Choices of space trucking, combat, mining, or passenger missions, and even more are out there in the black as they say. You can be a good guy or a bad guy and your choices do carry some weight, both personally and in the wider game. There's a whole background political game happening that I've barely touched yet even after hundreds of hours. Please note that even though it says 1400 hours it is more like 900-1000 hours once you remove time chilling in the lounge or on my buddy's fleet carrier.
I like the ground aspects for the stealth missions. Many different settlement types with lots of NPC patterns to give you lots of variety. Other more active conflict types are available too. I've also tried exploring and had a grand ol' time interstellar mudding in my space rig collecting meteorites and alien tree junk. Unfortunately, no sight of the alien Thargoids yet save for some remains, and I found the Guardian sites interesting but they need to flesh it out more. Operations is new and is fun but glitchy, I will reserve my final judgement on that one for now.
That said, there is definitely room for improvement. Updates could be more frequent, they are not always immediate. Anecdotally, there is a recent glitch with shuttles that causes you to leave behind supplies when you disembark a shuttle, tantamount to losing my luggage when I fly business class so a second shuttle needs to meet me so I may retreive many of my belongings. There have been previous glitches involving missing mission targets I experienced, they were eventually fixed but it took over a month and during that time I took a break from the game.
Beyond that multicrew was difficult, partly because you can't shuttle to carriers, and partly because of disconnection issues. This turns the extra seats in your ship into more of a novelty as there isn't enough reason to use them. It would be nice for it to be more rewarding to fly with my friends. As it stands everyone may as well be in their own ship nearly all the time they aren't docked or on foot, which is a shame. It would also be nice if more random alien stuff could attack you to liven things a little, or have to watch out for natural phenomena a bit more closely, such as meteors, volcanoes, etc.
In the end,the price was also reasonable both when I received it as a gift and when I later bought additional copies. I would say one should get this game and expansion when it comes on sale, likewise if you want to upgrade any of the cosmetics and the like inside the game when they inevitably try to upsell you. Do not skimp on getting the expansion in my opinion, it is a must to fully experience Elite. Flight sticks help but aren't necessary I played most of my time without them.
P.S. Also check the official website because they give the original Elite game away for free there.
o7(It's a space salute, remember it Commander.)
