It's not a terrible game. I still inexplicably have hundreds of hours put into it. (according to Xbox achievements I'm one of only 6% to bother reaching level 50)

Their comment about being a different experience each time is disingenuous, though. The only major questline that "feels" any different is The crimson Fleet storyline, which I loved and legitimately had a tough decision about which way to go.

But Vanguard, Rangers, etc... are all variations on the same missions with a different faction slapped on them. It's all pretty generic stuff with the occasional cool mission tossed in. (Ryujin, for example was far to easy and uncreative until the very last mission, which was legitimately fun)

Settlements and outposts are entirely pointless. You can ignore them completely. And you never have to visit a random mining/civilian/science outpost if you don't want to. Which to me seems like a negative. If a major feature of your game can safely be ignored, you haven't integrated it properly into the larger narrative.

But yet somehow I still have just about 250 hours into it. I don't know why. Probably the ship building, which is fun as hell.