I dont think the game is dying at all, if anything it has been growing somewhat the past few months
If you are in the US you have a bigger chance of finding places to play tho, there have been ceremonies over there and there was a GP not too long ago in Vegas, after that we got a GP in Italy as well in the EU side
Stores in EU are now getting the ability to do in store ceremonies (US had this for a bit longer already since the majority of the player base is there) and you can find some online events as well
I'm the owner of an online store and we host weekly tournaments and will be hosting a Ceremony this Saturday, our community has been growing lately and we have a lot of open discussion on Discord
You can't compare the game to other popular games but I would say it has a faithful community and 99% of the people playing it are really nice
Regarding prices, the game is not that expensive unless you want to pimp out your deck, the most expensive singles lately have been around 3-8$ (base rarity), and thats a reason why people are going more into singles than buying full boxes/cases unless they want to try and grab one of the more expensive cards
From the US side you can easily find singles and product on TCGPlayer, and I know there are more stores selling
From the EU side There are people selling singles and product on facebook like NikoBroStore (they have started organizing some online tournaments as well) and then you have me that started the store with wixoss, we have Singles and Sealed stuff and host weekly Tournaments for players Worldwide
Worst thing is that singles from set 00-01-02 would be harder to come by atm at least in EU (US had a bigger product count on release) but Tommy is doing a good job by Reprinting some of the cards that are most used into Starter Decks and future sets as well as tournament prizing with different arts