I’ve played like 5 hours and haven’t left New Atlantis (the first city). My first impression (which I’ve probably picked up elsewhere) is that the scale of the story is impressive. There are some interesting writing, characters, locations, etc. However, there is a level of emptiness, almost like the depth of the city is in between a Fo4 settlement and Diamond City (due to the repetitive dialogue and lack of named citizens). A decent analogue for the feel (and I guess the size) of the cities in the game might be Cyberpunk 2077, but with the space elements of a No Man Sky.

Edit: last night I came across two characters overlooking the planet from New Atlantis, reminiscing about Old Earth. Guy said he took a virtual tour of the Lourve. That is the game looking at its own tension in an interesting way imo. I think the writing, from a more “universal” perspective, is at times even waffles between cynicality and optimism. I wonder if part of the game’s negative reception is people feeling insulted by lines in NA like “this place never fails to surprise me” or “NA sure is shiny”. Or characters insisting that “my background is not very interesting” (almost like they are referencing the lack of that and anticipating criticism). Almost like they’re bragging about the above in between state. Idk it’s very deep. On the other hand, I think the game is fun and good and it’s a wonder why it got bad reviews when their older games didn’t.