Starfield Steam reviews give the Bethesda RPG a ‘mostly positive’ rating, as the Fallout and Skyrim successor slips down the categories after its full launch.
The game seems good and mostly well made, with the best hand-crafted environments I've ever seen from Bethesda.
But when it comes to the core gameplay loop, I feel like I've played this game already and I got bored very, very quickly.
It truly plays like Fallout 4 but with more menus and loading screens in order to fast travel somewhere. There is space combat, but it doesn't feel compelling to me. Click on bad ship until kaboom.
You want to fast travel? Drop some things, you can't fast travel while encumbered. Please undock first, we have some quest events tied to undocking and we don't want you to miss those. Please fast travel to the planet before landing at a location, we have some quest events tied to the space around planets and we don't want you to miss those.
Again though, the game is generally well made and I can see a lot of people truly enjoying it and the many gameplay systems you can dive into like settlement, ship, crew building, and side questing.
The slower-paced looter shooter gameplay loop just really isn't for me right now. I'd rather play Fallout or Borderlands.
Note that I haven't commented on the story. I don't feel like I've experienced enough of it to really give a good opinion on it. I've played 4 hours.
It isn't really a slower paced looter shooter, hell I barely loot anything and talk my way out of most situations.
It is more of a story based RPG, where you carve your own story out of the game. You decide what kind of character you want to play, and which quests you follow and which you ditch, anything is permitted.
If the only thing you do is go inside a random dungeon, shoot anything that moves, loot anything that isn't nailed down and then go sell it, you won't have a great time.
If you want to enjoy the game more, I'd suggest to choose a trope for your character: diplomatic Federation Captain, cunning Bounty Hunter, vicious Space Pirate, hardened Space Trucker, curious Scientific Explorer, ...
Then find a quest line that synergies with your trope and follow it all the way through. Making decisions based upon how your character would react, not just what option will give you the most loot or is the easiest to accomplish.
Starfield has all the scifi tropes imaginable, kind of like what Skyrim had with Fantasy.
Currently I am enjoying my interpretation of the backstory of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek. Being as helpful as I can, making philosophical statements and trying to find a diplomatic solution to anything. I change the UC to be the Federation and the Vanguard to be Starfleet. And recreated the USS Enterprise to the best of my abilities.