I've played this game for about 10 hours so far. Its hard to discribe what this game is. Its not an action game, it not a story driven game. Its a game you can play and relax. It's like a mix of Myst and Minecraft with a sprinkle of what Destiny should have been.
You start out on a random planet with a random starter ship. Apparently I was lucky enough to have a 14 slot starter, my friend only had 11 slots on his. Inventory management is a nightmare at first. You're ship is small, you suit only holds about 7-8 slots in which 2-3 are already taken up by technologies. Any tech you craft takes up a slot, any upgrade to that tech takes another slot. At first you don't really even need any upgrades. Space is precious. It steadily gets better as you have money. Making money is probably the most vital part of the early game. inventory upgrades can be found on planets and have to be purchased from drop pods. each upgrade goes up 10k units in price. I'm currently in the 30s and the last slot I bought cost me 220k units. Getting a new ship can be done in two ways. You can get lucky and find a crashed ship, or make an offer on a ship you see dock at a space station or landing pad. Making an offer seems to be the best way to go for more space, but its the most expensive way as well. The more wealth you obtain, the more expensive ships you tend to see land. A decent sized ship will cost you 2-5 million units. Finding a ship is free, you just need to obtain the resources to repair it. The drawback is that it seems to be tied to your current ship. I've confirmed it on reddit that ships you find will only differ 1-3 inventory slots... and thats +/-. Finding a ship with 3 more slots from your starter ship may be great, but plan on buying a ship, especially if you want to dogfight.
Most of the game is spent exploring ambient landscapes and mining resources. Each planet can be vastly different in what elements they hold. Iron and Plutonium are the most common that can be found on every single planet. Other isotopes and elements can be scarce to non existent, or insanely abundant. I lucked out an found a planet where vortex cubes littered the ground. I made millions easily, while my friend found a planet where vortex cubes were on pedestals and the sentinels would attack if you took them... I eventually found a planet like this as well. When trying to carry all this wealth to sell, it can be cumbersome to turn a profit. Backtracking in his game is non existent. You can't make markers, and things are spread out erratically. The best way to go about keeping a TP marked is by not discovering it after you manage to ping it via another beacon. That way it stay on your map. Selling all valuables that you don't need is important because when you leave planets and travel in space, you can get scanned by pirates and then have to dogfight them. I'm pretty sure this is proced by having valuables on board... I've yet to be scanned when I've had nothing.
Outside of mining resources and selling precious elements and treasures, you can find knowledge stones and alien ruins. These will teach you a word and sometimes reward you with a tech blueprint. As you learn more words, alien merchants jibberish become decoded depending on what they say. A lot of alien NPCs will say a line and you are presented with choices. Getting the right response rewards you with tech, resources, and standing with certain alien races. You can also scan and discover species of animals on each planet. Some planets present the opportunity to get 200-300k units for discovering all the species and logging them.
The game does have a repetitive nature, and what little lore it has from ruin to ruin is interesting. The only difference is coming across the main goal of the game if you choose to follow it. (I'll leave that out due to spoilers). It's not for everyone, but I personally like it. Its different, and stress free.
The movement speed is pretty slow outside of the ship, but thankfully there is a trick that helps yo move super fast on foot.