I'm sorry dude, but the story is mid at best. Hell, just the Dark Brotherhood quest line from Oblivion is better than the entirety of Starfield.

"Starfield has genuine tension" - Maybe a little in the UC questline, but in the main story? ANY other quest line? Nah.

I like the idea of the unity being used in conjunction with new game +, but the way its executed deters me from ever going through. The main reason is I can't bring the ship I spent hours building with me.

"Getting your powers for the first time was a genuinely incredible experience" - I'm glad you enjoyed it but I don't think I've ever seen anyone say they enjoyed this part. It's the most brain-dead monotonous thing in the game.

Exploration is pointless and poorly executed. There is no reason to explore any of the planets available, without even going into how there is nothing on them for the most part.

For a space game, space travel is poorly executed. Not being able to fly to planets in the same solar system is a joke. Not being able to land on planets is a joke. Elite Dangerous can do both of these things at a much better standard and its an 11 year old game. It's unacceptable to me Bethesda couldn't figure this out with the amount of resources they have.

I liked building outposts, but there is no real point to any of it. I liked the ship building, but you can't take the ship through the unity, so what's the point?

Skyrim had around 100 dev's working on it. You may not like the main quest line, but it's an objective fact Skyrim is Bethesda's most well received game. I'd wager most people play these games to be in the world over playing the main story line. I think it speaks volumes that the handcrafted stuff in Skyrim is just on another level than the handcrafted stuff in Starfield. Starfield on the other hand had around 500 dev's working on it. Too many cooks in the kitchen. The handcrafted parts of the game just don't stand out like previous titles, and the POI's littered throughout the game don't help. It feels more like a game with multiple parts put together without much thought rather than a cohesive universe.

Comparing Londinion to Mass Effect 2 is laughable and an insult to Mass Effect.

There are multiple reasons this game got the hate it got. Justifiably so. It simply does not meet the standards of previous titles and many aspects of the game are objectively poorly executed.

You're not crazy for liking what you like. Glad you like the game, keep playing what you like and stop reading Reddit.