My issue is I tried to play it like Skyrim or fallout which are open world games. In those games you leave the vault/cave and can run in any direction. As you do you find main story towns, events, caves for combat with crazy loot, scripted events galore.
Starfield quickly funnels you into New Atlantis which is a mistake in my opinion. I think Cydonia or Akila would’ve been a smaller and more approachable starting town with quests that get you out killing stuff.
When you drop in Atlantis and try to play the Skyrim mentality of let’s talk to everyone here it doesn’t lead you to a small crypt in town with skeletons to break up the talking. Nor is a quest 20 feet outside of town to go tackle and come right back. Due to the disconnectedness of the planets you leaving Atlantis can take you somewhere that leads to a ton of activities but they could be the less grade filler ones.
I’ve spent over 50 hours in starfield and it’s all been from quests picked up specifically from Atlantis of which it took me roughly 10 hours to talk to everyone it seemed like.
So when people say it gets good after 10-12 it’s true because if you did what I did you goofed. You should plow through main story stuff and get involved in main faction quests like crimson fleet or UC to see the very well crafted content this game offers. There’s a LOT of this amazing stuff to do but it is far too easy for a player to miss out on it for such a long time due to initial structuring of the game.
It just needed to funnel folks into more of its good stuff out the gate—- not new Atlantis.