Back in my day, villages weren't even in the game.
My highschool classmates and I still found something compelling about it.
replyI had a good number of hours in Minecraft Classic's browser version, mostly in online servers though. Solo wasn't much fun.
replyModern Minecraft is still not much of an appeal to me without mods. I'm happy to see more block games like Vintage Story push the medium forward while Microsoft... wraps up post-production on A Minecraft Movie: Squared, I guess?
It depends what you mean by "early game." The first night cycle happens within minutes of starting and it's very interesting.
replyIt also has effectively zero physics. I still remember being annoyed at how water worked in Minecraft when playing with my kid, and the fact that trees don't collapse if you cut 'em down.
reply(Yes, yes, mods exist.)