Okay, now that I got settled in and can drift in/out/around stations and gates, and that I poked most of menus and learned a lot of how to break the game and how to unbreak it (and how to avoid it) I must say: I love it.
As I said before, I hope NPCs and everything become more alive and lively later on, but their UI/HUD and flow overhaul is just so sweet.
I haven't got a single timed mission yet, and once you have some good map chunks discovered, all you have to do is keep the map and mission manager open, pick up a few missions, and go be happy and murder everything along the way, without stressing out about nonsensical timers.
Yes, there are bugs. Most can be avoided by smart saving and not poking certain things too hard, and leaving some room for your NPCs to go in/out their seats.. at least when it comes to early game, I'm 100% sold.
I got a M3+ equivalent, the Antigone Republic Pulsar. I'm not sure if any Argon Feds fighter have 6 weapon hardpoints, but this one has. And I just melt s***. It costs ~2.4 million fully equipped.
Next step is grabbing a Corvette/Frigatte or equivalent, and trying out some larger ship combat + boarding - in X3/X:R all I did was capture large ships (while collecting small ones was part of the job), if they have that part polished I'll be very happy.
I also really like the idea of guilds/war efforts for some reason. It adds such great variety of mission types. I know in 100h they will all be boring and all that, but I don't remember ever having so many options to choose when it comes to mission types. I had to rescue a frigate [L] that was uncrewed and stranded in a minefield: destroy minefield, hack/board ship, give back to owners. It took me 15 minutes to find the damn hatch. Although it's probably an oversight (and a little bug, because the armored exterior airlock door doesn't open while it clearly should, so good luck finding a Cerberus' airlock), it made me feel like a happy noob.
However, you know you're playing X when you do it your way and stuff still works. Since I couldn't find the hatch, I claimed the ship in a different way: get close to it on your ship, claim it, land your S ship, go to its bridge and use your spacesuit. It'll leave you at the hatch you were supposed to hack, objectives will fix themselves and you're ready to complete the mission.
Other cool thing about Guilds and 'War Efforts' is that they have missions that usually cover all the kinds of gameplay styles - building, exploring, fighting, trading, or doing weird shit.