Are you familiar with Bethesda games? The best way to describe it is that it's a Bethesda game that sacrifices what makes Bethesda games great (the handcrafted open world) in exchange for an illusion of scale and scope by way of procedural generation.

What you're left with is mediocre writing, boring characters and uninteresting exploration of copy-pasted points of interest.

The problem is that it flat out isn't a space exploration game. Space is more or less a glorified loading zone. You can do some dogfighting if you want, but you're mostly just going to fast travel from planet to planet while completing modern, bland Bethesda quests.

If you really just love Bethesda games, and have enjoyed your time in Fallout 4 or 76, there's not anything wrong with it structurally. The gunplay is about as good as the Creation Engine allows, and there's some actually cool new game+ additions to encourage a replay. The problem is that if you're someone who saw both of those games as signs of Bethesda faltering, Starfield is your proof that their open-world design is outdated, and their writing can't compete in the same arena as someone like Larian.

IIRC it was unfortunately pretty empty, discovery was very limited, and people were mighty upset that it was effectively a load zone simulator. Most things could be fast traveled to but also had load zones 10 feet from where you loaded in.

I'm sure there is more but that's the jist of what I know

I can't speak for everyone, only myself. It seemed to be mostly a case of 'What was promised is not what was delivered.' They promised a ton of locations to travel to and explore, and we got a lot, but they are 99% empty with maybe one POI per location. However, what really killed it for me is the inventory system. Hauling resources around for crafting is an incredible chore, meaning your only real option is to use the lodge's infinite weight box. I hated it.

In short, it's shit. Way below usual Bethesda quality. Their engine is patently not up to the task of representing their game ideas. It's a pity because there is some good stuff there. But not the main quest. It's genuinely awful. I gave up the game when I discovered what the main quest was, it's that stupid

Steam reviews should be a good place to read about it. Despite what people may say about steam reviews (jokes and brigading), it's still a good source of info.

...are you doorsexual?