Very late reply here, but I just realized what you are describing sounds to me like jumping to the last page of a book, and we play games for extremely different reasons, like to the point that we might even be able to talk about it. "Straight to end game experience" in a single player game with a written plot? Isn't that like reading the plot summary of a mini-series and decide it's shit? As for your last paragraph I have no relation to that. I wouldn't spend 50 hours reading a book I found uninteresting. But again, we are very different apparently so I might not even be able to understand you*.
*no human fully understands another human.
Generally what I look for in any game is solid gameplay
or a good story and its even better if it has both. A good 'gameplay loop' can represent that, if it keeps itself fresh and interesting (the sense of discovery > hoarding a full inventory > level progression & crafting/shopping you find in for example Skyrim or earlier TES games). Starfield has a problem there in my view, the loop isn't there, or feels disjointed because of all the loading screens and separation of game areas. Story: I can enjoy a game with a good story, too, Starfield's didn't grip me in any way whatsoever, and a big part of that is the so-so dialogue alongside the hilarious mocap and character looks. Presentation fails there.
Another aspect of Starfield as a game is its progression paths: the scaling, the getting better weapons, and perhaps the 'sense of discovery' in terms of gameplay mechanics like combat. Again: the game gives you a little peek at it and seems to contain all the elements of it, but then you figure it out and its not there. Level 1 game plays the same as level 10 or level 50. There is some questionable gunplay or melee and not much else and it never changes. Other gameplay with progression but no real reward: building ships and outposts. They are again disconnected from the game other than being a time sink.
OTOH in games like Skyrim and Fallout the progression paths dó offer something. Better weapons, new looks, the progression through 'materials' like Glass weaponry. Even though the same stat progression appears in those games, I can play them and feel like an endgame boss that has conquered the game world more so than I did at the beginning. That is progression enabling the supposed (or perceived) endgame experience. Quests and enemies are generally easy at this point, and many game worlds offer some content to satisfy the new power level. Starfield does not, other than making bigger bullet sponges out of the same stuff.
So I'm familiar to playing games in various different ways and changing my expectations of what a game's strengths are or should be, the problem with Starfield is that whichever way I go, I stumble upon broken mechanics, just bad gameplay that reminds of DX9 era nonsense (pathing errors, the usual Creation Engine shit), weak gunplay, poor dialogue and mocap to support its story... There's just no way to play this game for me without being annoyed by how poorly it is executed. Even area design isn't good, or interesting - like literally nowhere: planets are square, barren fields with some objects plunked on them, and population hubs are so limited in scope they pale compared to even similar 'hubs' like you see them in Mass Effect (very similar in scope, but almost every hub in ME has more life and atmosphere to it, plus better level design) and they even pale in comparison to any TES or Fallout game from the
same studio. So I think you're right there, the book's first chapters already didn't work out well with me at all, and the writing never got better in any way to still get me hooked into it.
