The author of the article bragged on twitter that he photoshopped the picture to make it seem like a bug. The unedited picture is also a screenshot from the old build of the game.
It's 100% misleading, the author just wants to rage-bait.
No way that's a real screenshot, someone exaggerated the eyes quite a bit. NPCs in Starfield do look worse than other comparable games, but not that much worse.