I honestly don't know if big faction vs. faction battles are in the game. I'm not sure how anyone can claim to know that they are not (except for the dev's). What I have seen is that several players have posted that have claim to have seen them. For example
https://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/361798516955467745/#c361798516955543001 This is not the only poster I have seen claiming this, although it is possible that there is a confusion between 'big battle' and faction wars going on. But I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. (I saw a couple of better examples a couple of days ago but I'm not prepared to sink ages into searching for them again, but I wish people claiming that this is clearly not in the game had done said searching...
before making such definitive claims.)
Personally I have not seen faction wars but I am also yet to see more than 5 pirate ships attacking at once and there have been multiple screenshots I have seen with 20+ pirates attacking, so I think it's safe to say that happens often enough.
The most ridiculous things I have heard about No Man Sky have come from people who have claimed that they were promised x, or that y is not in the game. (Like, 'Butterflies are definitely not in the game" Sean Lied, after I had seen them twice in my first two systems.) Yeah, right. The weight of hyperbole clearly falls on the haters here generally taking things out of context or making the small into the massive.
While there are some shortcomings, a couple of minor features left out, or not delivered as well as one might have hoped I think most haters are lambasting themselves. Haven't any of the devout multiplayers seen Sean saying if you want the MMO experience then go play Elite?
Nor is the lack of any specific player image in the files
neccesarily a sign that there is no possibility of seeing other players - maybe all players have procgen images as one of the three factions already in the game? Not making a claim of that nature but the damning which has taken place because of the lack of said image is hugely misplaced. Another possibility is that HG ran out of time to get that into the release and were smart enough to remove their work in progess elements from the 1.0 release.
Sure there are some things which I wish had been done better, and I'm not sure how much I'll being still enjoying the game down the track but it clear that the game has delivered on its core promises of being about Exploration and Not Being for Everyone.
If $60 really was too much you should have kept your 'wallet' in your pants.