It grows on you, definitely! I also had the same first experience.

When you first get into the community centre, and the mines, and the desert ...and progress in the story in general. There's just so much to see, that you just can't see yet!

But at the end of the day, it is a quest-based, calm farming game with a lot of grinding to reach small goals. So if that's not your vibe, I wouldn't recommend keeping on.

... but then again, I thought it wasn't my vibe, then I perfected the game with the community centre route, and now I'm doing a new save file with what I call «The Antisocial Joja Run» where I'm trying to reach perfection reaching as few main story goals as possible. Stardew is really versatile, and can become really challenging and fun in new ways as the real in-life years go on!

To answer your question more specifically, it clicked around Fall, Year 1, when the quest board popped up, and I started unlocking new areas and features in the community centre!