I don't think anyone disagrees and I don't really see negative comments about the devs or the studio.

The problem is the game itself, gameplay wise. It's just boring for many (including me)

Somewhat of an aside but, personally, I also found GTA V and Red dead redemption 2 to be boring because these games didn't respect my time. I could play for two hours and still feel like I accomplished nothing except for "interacting with the world".

RDR2 feels to me like a game that would be awesome to play once I'm in retirement and have all the time in the world.

'I could play for two hours and still feel like I accomplished nothing except for "interacting with the world"'

Funny how this is exactly the same sentiment I feel about NMS. Go figure, different strokes, ya know?

> I could play for two hours and still feel like I accomplished nothing except for "interacting with the world".

Two hours is like three or twelve story missions, depending on where in the story you are. Did you spend most of that time farting around doing stuff that wasn't main story [0], or are you just not really into the stories being told? IME, Rockstar's 3D games have always been not-all-that-great third-person shooters, but made up for it with the storytelling and world-building.

> ...because these games didn't respect my time.

If I were Global Overlord for a month, I'd permanently banish the sentiment "This video game doesn't respect my time". It's fine to say "This game bored me." or "I just didn't enjoy this game.". Unless we're talking about predatory "free" to "play" games [1] that survive by deliberately reaching deep into the wallets of whales, mixing pride into the discussion and claiming the injury of disrespect is very silly.

[0] ...of which Red Dead 2 has an absolute assload -most of which will bore folks to tears who don't really dig the "late 1800's outlaw going on about his day" thing-, and GTA V has a fair bit...

[1] Games that you have to pay up front to play can also belong in this category.

RDR2's intro absolutely did not respect my time. I sat down with an hour free to play it, and in that time, I did not reach a save point. There was some story, but it was very slow, and I had precisely zero interest in repeating it. I ran out of time, turned it off and never came back.

Same. I really want to play it but - I feel I need to skip the first hour to do so?

Almost all of the story missions are: 1) walk/drive/ride to this place 2) Talk to NPC 3) Do an extremely boring task (follow someone, drive somewhere, etc) 4) Walk somewhere else 5) Talk to someone else. 6) Collect XP or another reward.

Most of it is not enjoyable gameplay.

Yeah. Like, the train heist and other cool gameplay segments were fun. But the missions to go to some random town and talk to someone and escort them back? Horrible.

Don’t forget the top notch drawer rummaging simulator.

That’s fine, it has a sustained concurrent players online of > 7k every day for the last 6 months [0]. Few games on Steam achieve that.

While several people are complaining about a one-time-cost game with an absurd amount of updates that had a rough launch, thousands of people are continuously happy, the subreddit expresses joy. It’s okay to “not get it”; but at some level, this much hate and dogpiling over a game that’s not harmful and not fostering a toxic community is … embarrassing for those participating in the hate.

[0] https://steamcharts.com/app/275850#6m

What hate? What dogpiling? People are simply talking about how they aren't into the game and find it shallow.

I sense a lot of unwarranted defensiveness from certain fans of the game. Having sustained concurrent players on Steam isn't going to transform the game into something it's not for the people who just aren't into it.

I've relaunched it multiple times over the years when a new content update comes out, and I get the same feeling of shallow blandness every time and move on. The core gameplay simply does not do it for me.

That's another great point. And the general trend (ignoring the peaks of releases) is trending upward which is especially rare on Steam.

Do you enjoy similar games (vast open worlds, resource collection/management, crafting)?