Edit: Review Addendum for 1.0 release:

It's official, for their grand finale, Chucklefish has totally ruined Starbound.

They finally settled on one tedious game mechanic and a generic "collect all the macguffins" plotline for the "1.0" release. Then they took all the hit or miss content they had tested and either vetted or removed over the last 3 years, carelessly ground it all up, and poured the resultant slop over the bland ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ base game. Kinda like a chef who mulches an entire thanksgiving dinner into a soup, bones and all.

It seems like they couldn't decide how to properly implement all their old content in the face of the re-re-re-invented design, but rather than let it all go to waste, they just hastily rebranded and pasted bits of it everywhere. The slurry pulp that used to be sequential mission instances and technology unlocks is now an incomprehensible pile of broken gameplay chunks, haphazardly slapped everywhere without reason or direction.

The result is a horrible, disjointed, unplayable cluster♥♥♥♥ overflowing with inexplicable changes, even when it's NOT suffering from game-breaking slowdowns and fatal glitches. Unfortunately, this is the mess they've decided to settle on, so this is the mess we're stuck with. Even a dozen brilliant 3rd party user mods aimed at mitigating the damage aren't enough to salvage this disaster.

Good older content like the portable pixel printer are gone, while ridiculous, nonsensical additions were made, such as giant, unkillable ghosts that haunt every empty moon in the universe. Why??

In fact, that's the question that best sums up this entire "official non-beta release." WHY.

--Beta Version review follows:

I fear Starbound will turn out less like Disneyland, which is a functional masterpiece that will never be finished but constantly improved, and more like the Winchester House, constructed haphazardly and proceeding aimlessly without direction until its owner's death. The game has a more than decent framework, but the developers keep changing the game's premise, leading to a circuitous lack of progress and wasted potential.

It's gone from a Terraria-like 2d space exploration game with procedural worlds and craftable bosses, to a story-driven series of instance dungeons, all the while killing off promising older content while adding more and more unfinished (and/or unnecessary) features. This slash-and-burn development has left the game unfocused, long after the point where it should have been crystallizing. The initial hype has died down, releases are fewer and longer between, and content is stagnant for months at a time, leaving players wondering if there's any motivation or momentum left to see it completed.

The playstarbound website seems to feature lots of regular updates, but most of it seems to be showing off graphical blandishment and experimental features, few if any of which have rolled down to gameplay or promise to offer much in the way of functional content. In their eagerness to demonstrate that they are still actively working on the game, they're offering a lot of gravy and not much meat.

Players will quickly burn through all the existing gameplay content and acquire all the useful craftable equipment, leaving you with nothing to do but wander randomly generated worlds in search of treasure chests. Judging from the comments here and at other sites, many players have walked away due to the lack of content, and with them goes word-of-mouth support. After all, what good is an increasingly graphically refined game world if there's nothing new to do in it?

Edit: Review Addendum for 1.0 release: It's official, for their grand finale, Chucklefish has totally ruined Starbound. They finally settled on one tedious game mechanic and a generic "collect all the macguffins" plotline for the "1.0" release. Then they took all the hit or miss content they had tested and either vetted or removed over the last 3 years, carelessly ground it all up, and poured the resultant slop over the bland shitcake base game. Kinda like a chef who mulches an entire thanksgiving dinner into a soup, bones and all. It seems like they couldn't decide how to properly implement all their old content in the face of the re-re-re-invented design, but rather than let it all go to waste, they just hastily rebranded and pasted bits of it everywhere. The slurry pulp that used to be sequential mission instances and technology unlocks is now an incomprehensible pile of broken gameplay chunks, haphazardly slapped everywhere without reason or direction. The result is a horrible, disjointed, unplayable clusterfuck overflowing with inexplicable changes, even when it's NOT suffering from game-breaking slowdowns and fatal glitches. Unfortunately, this is the mess they've decided to settle on, so this is the mess we're stuck with. Even a dozen brilliant 3rd party user mods aimed at mitigating the damage aren't enough to salvage this disaster. Good older content like the portable pixel printer are gone, while ridiculous, nonsensical additions were made, such as giant, unkillable ghosts that haunt every empty moon in the universe. Why?? In fact, that's the question that best sums up this entire "official non-beta release." WHY. --Beta Version review follows: I fear Starbound will turn out less like Disneyland, which is a functional masterpiece that will never be finished but constantly improved, and more like the Winchester House, constructed haphazardly and proceeding aimlessly without direction until its owner's death. The game has a more than decent framework, but the developers keep changing the game's premise, leading to a circuitous lack of progress and wasted potential. It's gone from a Terraria-like 2d space exploration game with procedural worlds and craftable bosses, to a story-driven series of instance dungeons, all the while killing off promising older content while adding more and more unfinished (and/or unnecessary) features. This slash-and-burn development has left the game unfocused, long after the point where it should have been crystallizing. The initial hype has died down, releases are fewer and longer between, and content is stagnant for months at a time, leaving players wondering if there's any motivation or momentum left to see it completed. The playstarbound website seems to feature lots of regular updates, but most of it seems to be showing off graphical blandishment and experimental features, few if any of which have rolled down to gameplay or promise to offer much in the way of functional content. In their eagerness to demonstrate that they are still actively working on the game, they're offering a lot of gravy and not much meat. Players will quickly burn through all the existing gameplay content and acquire all the useful craftable equipment, leaving you with nothing to do but wander randomly generated worlds in search of treasure chests. Judging from the comments here and at other sites, many players have walked away due to the lack of content, and with them goes word-of-mouth support. After all, what good is an increasingly graphically refined game world if there's nothing new to do in it?