I've bounced off NMS several times, despite having tried quite hard to get into it. So, my take is based on ~20 hours of early game, from 2025ish. Probably the best parallel I can draw is to Elite: Dangerous, which I played for several hundred ours before getting bored of it. What I find lacking in both games is that there's no _meaningful_ emergent gameplay that spawns off the procgen. Everything is wildy different on each planet, yet very same-y, because none of the differences really play into each other. In both, one can discover random biomes and creatures, but it's not like they are inherently interesting, they are mostly just following the same scripts.
Contrast this with something like Dwarf Fortress, which takes a slightly more in-depth approach to procgen, one where things have history, and in many ways, things "make sense". Or Rimworld, where the game tries its hardest to conjure up a narrative for you, dynamically, but still in a sandbox. So, basically, NMS is a perfectly functional sandbox game, and I have huge respect for them for keeping on working at it for so many years. However, it doesn't scratch my "hardcore simulation / mastery" itch, and so far I haven't been grabbed by any of its story generation. It just felt like a long series of fetch quests and "collect them all" games.
That's basically it. It's not a simulation. So if you want simulation, then NMS isn't your game. Maybe X4 might be better suited. Or maybe not.
Sometimes people forget that not everybody has to like every game :D
No Man's Sky is much more like Minecraft in that way, you have to make up your own goals, the game doesn't really prompt you in any way to do anything.
If you’re looking for a scripted arc, wrong game by construction.
I think the multiplayer aspect is a bit weaker than it could be, maybe improved more recently, but it is a something that Minecraft has done well
Obviously NMS's original marketing was bonkers and capitalised on saying technically true things in ways to mislead large numbers of people.
A little bit of depth to go with all that breadth?
I'm not saying there aren't deep systems in NMS. Its just that they are sparse. You can tool around all day having only the most cursory interactions with most of the game's systems. They've added so many interesting things, yet last time I played it felt there wasn't much of anything to do with them. For example, the Pokemon clone they added a few updates ago -- fun for five minutes. Super simple battles. However many months of development for something that got old after 5 minutes.
If the game doesn't appeal to you, then that's fine too. But overall the game fills an interesting and accessible niche beneath games like X4: Foundations and Elite Dangerous.