I've put about an hour and a half into No Man's Sky and it's exactly, to the point, what I expected from sensibly digesting all the pre-launch media and previews.
On one hand I don't feel it's a very good game, at least for my taste. It's very repetitive, follows a shallow gameplay cycle, and is definitely too big for its own booths. On the other hand I really admire the technology within and the general ambience and mood it conveys, which is something that on this 3D scale hasn't been done before.
So I'm left in this weird middleground. I think there's a lot of potential in the technology and concept that today is partially hindered by Hello Games being a tiny team, and partially technology itself. I'm not sure how feasible an even more complex, game system rich No Man's Sky under the same huge galaxy+ size template would be with today's CPU and RAM bottlenecks. There's definitely a place for a game that's No Man's Sky with even deeper, richer game systems, maybe in the future. I also like a lot of the concepts put into the game as-is; the language stuff is super neat, mining is fine, faux-RPG inventory and gear, etc. But it's still all follow the same relatively shallow gameplay loop.
It just never really presents itself as anything other than this though. Like it's 100% built on how invested you, the player, will subjectively be in this galaxy spanning resource acquisition adventure. The adventure is just you. And either the smoke and mirrors and game systems don't work and you don't care and it's all a crock of Molyneux shit. Or you're caught up in the scope and travel and legitimately (if potentially superficial) endlessness of everything and find peace and wonder with that. Or maybe you fall somewhere in between.
And I think me having quelled huge expectations, that's what the game is for me; an in between. I know I'm going to get bored, just like I get bored with Minecraft and Destiny, because I don't really like these gameplay systems very much. I don't like the feedback loop of resource gathering and upgrading. But at the same time I'm fascinated by the technology and its implementation, mainly for the fact it exists right now and there's potential for it to grow in the future. I can fly between planets and moons in real time and land on the surface and it's all fucking huge with gorgeous vistas and even though it's nothingness and pointless I still love the fact this can be done and I haven't done it before.
I'm basically a tourist in a technology demo I really like, and a game I don't. And I'm kinda okay with that.