TL:DR
$45 'stable' release, comes with same unfulfilled promises from 8+ years ago.
I really enjoyed this game, I have over 1000 hours on steam and have no idea how much I played on ps4. Hell, the reason I built my pc was to play this game (and custom cod zombies). That being said, I would not pay $45 for the current 'stable' release, probably worth it under $10.
My main beef is $45. Thats how much you charge for a finished game, but this is far from finished. Their own roadmap includes crossplay, weather upgrades, a wardrobe, NPC's, and bandits. This roadmap is 18 months long, if they can deliver all of their promises the game will be 12 years old then. (They will not)
NPC's and bandits are especially interesting to me, because I bought this game for pc in 2017, not too long after reading this blog post
https://joelhuenink.tumblr.com/post/144526427828/bandits-weve-got-the-heavy-bandit-armor-done-and
This is just about how every alpha has gone since then, big youtube and twich promotions, lots of promises, and then, a small, incrimental update.
Last, but not least, the current game kind of sucks. The hitboxes are better than when they first updated the UNITY engine after a16, but still shit. There is a spot in the zombie's shoulder that if you hit them with an arrow, the game chokes for a couple of frames then they do a cool spin. Each and every poi has invisible barriers (and has since a16) which cause agro, so walk in room, back out, slowly hit with (object). Skill progression is tied behind xp based points, reading rng magazines, and there is a perk that increases your loot, but there are other perks to increase the specific magazine loot.
Really didn't play much since a17, but I've played a few hours of each alpha since. This 1.0 is no different, but I cannot get over that price.
The core problem with 7DTD is a lack of direction. The devs have spent the last however many years rebuilding the core aspects of the same over and over and over again instead of just deciding that they like what they have and refining that. I'm convinced this is what they'll continue to do even after the "1.0" release they just did.
The only thing they're sure of is that the players are playing the game wrong, and they will mercilessly nerf any particularly powerful strategy, trick, etc. that doesn't fit wit their confused definition of what the game is. Really, the best thing I can say to someone interested in the game is, look at the end-game horde base builds. They follow bizarre logic that only follows around the nonsensical whims of the developers. It feels less like you're surviving a brutal post-apocalypse and more like you're playing a tower defense puzzle game. Something like Sanctum if it was a zombie survival game, ran like trash, and didn't know what it wanted to be.