This game sucks but it's really moddable which means you can make it good

I played this game in the beta YEARS ago. I will never forget what they took from us.

Characters had unique traits and buffs to weapons/play styles.
Stylized AI for each race.
Unique food for each race (robots couldn't eat normal food and vice versa).
Planned ship battles!

And instead... we get this awful gameplay loop stripped of all flavor. It's "go to this planet > scan some things > fight a boss" and you do that 6x. But "oooo this one is tree flavor!"

Ridiculous. This game should have been something special, something unique and instead it's the most forgettable Terraria knock off I've seen.

( tl;dr : I'm settling on a negative based on the vanilla gameplay, but with mods I'd rate it a positive. )

This game is a ton of fun, and used to be a game I'd return to for a couple weeks at least once a year.
...with mods.

Without?
Honestly, don't bother. Go play Terraria. This game is the epitome of "wasted potential", and not only is devoid of any real content, but the content that IS available barely relates to one another, and has no real point of existing.
That sounds vague, but...That's really it. Just an empty game, with very limited options on how to explore, build, progress, and even fight.
This story ain't even baked right. It was thrown in last minute to give players a "purpose", but it honestly feels like it just made the entire experience worse lmao wtf is that ending??

However, the modding community has more than reinvented this game over and over again. There are over 10,000 mods, and they add such rich variety to every element of the game that it was in dire need of, to different races, more planet biomes, combat, endgame enrichment, even lighting overhauls--you name it. Modding creators have CARRIED this game for years, and are the only reason why I have over 1000 hours in this game and even play at all anymore.

But should you buy a game when it is ONLY playable with mods? That is up to you. I think games should be playable in BOTH vanilla and modded experiences to justify any price tags.