Hmm if you think about it, to an EA game it has little content, yes. But for a first release, pre-alpha, it's one of the best launches I've seen, even riddled with bugs. Along with Empyrion, I think.
Mostly because the gameplay and game flow is well set together with the content..and that's not always the case, especially for sandbox games.
I saw a bunch of comments calling it Yes Man Sky. But I think that depends on what you were looking for in NMS in the first place.
I was looking for a first-person exploration/building/crafting where I could fly and land my ship anywhere, and the backbone of the experience would be a decent story and a strong lore.
Of course, we know that backbone is nonexistant, so it fell apart to me.So I don't really get the Yes Man Sky vibes, because NMS was supposed to be more personal, and more wanderer-like experience. I was expecting to get way more immersed in the universe.
In the case of Astroneer, I feel more detached and I love the 'alien' feeling of everything. It reminded me when I watched Wall-E for the first time, when he encounters EVA..it looks alien, no one knows how it works..but its human.
That's what I expected of Astroneer with its minimalistic UI, focus on exploration, yet trying to keep you tethered to something. I enjoy watching people starting to play Astroneer, because they slowly poke around and discover simple things like "Hey, I can attach this here!", "Hey, I can attach this here, and this there, and it still works!". I can't think on a lot of sandbox games like that.
Anyways, in the end, I was looking for two completely different things and experiences..buuut I do agree that once you unlock the Spaceship, and carry a bunch of fuel, power generation and storage..it can feel like Yes Man Sky if you just use the ship to explore around instead of building bases everywhere (like I do, and then it tanks the save FPS).
In conclusion, if you take into consideration that Sean Murray wanted No Man's Sky to be a chill Sci-Fi exploration game, then Astroneer is more No Man's Sky than No Man's Sky is.
Disclamer: I don't feel like I'm expressing myself well today, so I hope my rambling made some sense. Basically No Man's Sky at a third the price and without all the griefing of the player by the game itself.
Hahaha, well put!
When I was rushing to finish NMS by jumping through 50+ blackholes (can't remember the exact number it took), my girlfriend was watching me streaming.
She says she felt sad because the ship kept breaking, because it looked tedious, and because I sounded very annoyed.
When I got the ending, we were on teamspeak and she said "I hope I never make you sound disappointed like that, it felt horrible to hear".
10/10 IGN