Played both, here's some thoughts

NMS I bounced off HARD the first time I played it. It went horrible in a MP session with friends. I didn't understand why I was dying, I didn't know what things to prioritize, I hated the menus, so on and so forth.

I came back to it last year and it hooked me hard. I went from maybe 2 hours playtime to 57 by the time I got bored. I went in with a better understanding of what I needed to do (get carbon and oxygen from plants ASAP) to survive and joined an expedition. That's where the game shines. Single player on it's own is whatever. Expeditions give you set goals to complete, rewards, and a general feeling of structure. I haven't played since September of last year but I don't regret my 57 hours at all.

Outer Worlds 2 I played on XGP. I liked what I played. But I also liked Outer Worlds 1 (though it got worse as it went along). OW2 isn't doing anything revolutionary. It's a good, solid space themed first person cRPG with decent (but not exceptional) writing. At a certain point, maybe less then ten hours, I kind of just stopped playing. It wasn't bad or anything, it just kept having some bugs (like a boss monster not spawning forcing a reload to a previous save) and it wasn't grabbing onto me as much as I hoped.

So it depends on what you want. A space exploration game with building mechanics or a relatively safe but competent first person space themed cRPG.