I have somewhat similar thoughts on Starfield. I actually quite enjoyed my first playthrough of the game and wouldn’t mind playing it again, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to someone. I thought the ship building was pretty good, and was probably my favourite part of the game, and playing through the main quest and major side quests were fun too, but beyond the clearly written out stuff there’s a lot of nothing. It’s the kind of game I’d have several shorter playthroughs of, spread out across a considerable period of time, rather than one or two really long ones or many back to back. I’m glad I played the game, and I’m glad I have it available to play again, but it’s certainly not a perfect game by a long shot and deserves its criticism. The criticism just doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers other people.