I spent $250 dollars to get an exclusive ship that will probably be re-released sometime down the line. The F8C Lightning. I've probably put 100 or so hours into the game by now. I started playing only a few years ago. From what I remember when I first started, the game has come a long way. The latest 3.23.1 patch has overhauled the UI, further balanced ships, added fauna to the game amongst other new features.
The best I can explain what Star Citizen is...it's very ambitious and trying to implement technology never seen before in gaming in its "Server Meshing". Basically it allows servers to communicate across one another to allow a greater number of players on a server, more object permanency and for objects to seemlessly transfer between two or more servers, So you would be able to drop a gun in the middle of no where and come back days later and it would still be there, as a crude example.
Does this justify the amount of time it's taken to get this game out? Absolutely not. Does it make the game a scam? Also no. When you pay money to the game you get what you paid for. It's only if the game never comes out that one could call it a scam. Cuz then there would be an end to service without the game ever being released.
Far as I can see, the game has continuously improved since I started playing, be it by having more ships, offering ship balancing, new gameplay mechanics such as mining, salvage, Peer to peer ship refueling, racing, hunting, spelunking, etc. There's been locations added, some semblance of a storyline for both law abiding citizens and criminals alike. I could keep going, but I won't bore you with that.
Ultimately though, like a game such as Roblox or Minecraft...it's the community that makes the game what it is. I'll give an example.
Before the 3.18 patch wipe where all money, ships bought with in game currency items in inventory were wiped a random player put up a rescue beacon for 15,000 auec (in game currency). This was far away, maybe 60 million Kilometers from me, clear across the Solar System. I wasn't doing much at the time so I said screw it, invited the guy to my party and began to route myself to his location. Long story short, after travelling for about 10 minutes I finally get to him and he's in the middle of nowhere....holding a box.
I call him using the in game call feature, asking why is he all the way out here, what happened to his ship? He said he ran into some trouble with some criminals and lost a wing, so decided to grab all the oxygen he could, set the ship to self destruct and bailed out so he wouldn't get caught in the blast. Now he's just floating out here. I like "Okayyyy, but what's the deal with the box"?
He responds, "Alright, you got me...I actually came all the way out here and set my ship to self destruct just to see if somebody was crazy and kind enough to come out here....and have a beer with me...so yea, that's what's in the box".
I'm cracking the fuck up at this point, and I open the ramp so he can float over and get in the back of my ship. I get out the pilot seat and sure enough....the box had a bunch of drinks in it. We crack a couple and just laugh about how ridiculous and admittedly genius this was. I ask him what's his destination is and we start the long trip back to his home planet. On the way he was clueing me in on the best ways to make money when the new patch comes out....what the best ships are. best guns for the ship and we shared a couple of stories of adventurous mishaps we've experienced.
When we finally arrived, he said he appreciated the time and the effort and sent me 2 million auec as a tip so I could go buy another ship to try out. It was frickin awesome.