Just play the first game.

Everything is markedly worse than the first, even after their "reloaded" update. Combat feels worse, parkour is floaty and barely responsive at times. For some insane reason they decided we needed an rpg class system for gear that can roll stats that effectively do nothing (such as sense being expanded or longer when on harder difficulties it's disabled anyway!) Don't get me started on the ungodly amount of resources they want you to farm for your consumable items and recipes to be leveled up. Oh and of course weekly and daily challenges to try and milk your play time out even further. Including a set of weeklies that unlocks a weapon that has NO OTHER WAY TO GET than siding with a particular faction in the main story. A weapon people begged for any other varieties of or ways to obtain. Even now the only ways are still the story option, weekly challenges, or just buying it through a dlc pack. Intentional or stupid? You decide.

The story and characters are markedly weaker. You're thrown into the middle of some grand conflict that they attempt to make a moral dilemma out of, but then tie that moral dilemma to entire gameplay features you will miss out on depending on who you side with. This just deflates the bare amount of care you may have had into just being "which upgrades sound better" and it's sad. The characters themselves range from endearing to down-right infuriating. Some of them flip flop allegiances and mood at the drop of a hat. Our own main character themselves is just worse than Kyle Crane in every way.

I'm really holding out hope the beast is more like the first game and has not a hint of this second game in it. This was a mistaken direction to take the series and I hope it's corrected.

Great addon for VR. Makes it much easier to access the desktop with no resource drain.

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game. Solo or with pals it a blast. You can go in fighting every few minutes if you want action or just become the worlds greatest architect and build insane towns and things. The modding scene is also very active full of great QOL and otherwise! I recommend the hell out of this game

July 7th 2014- As it is currently I cannot reccomend this game. It's got horrendous balancing issues, some parts are outright useless, and the general optimization of the game is severly lacking. Not to mention some games you won't even be able to join because a few random people have bad connections so the lobby won't launch. The community for the game is virtually non-existant, you'll only find 4-5 games if you're lucky. The supposed "team balancing" seems completely randomized as you can't see other people's ranks or gear meaning any chance of being on teams with a friend are basically futile. The game isn't all bad, and it does feel great to control at times but as of current the negatives outweigh the positives for me. I'll check in every now an then and update this if it changes, but as of right now if you're prone to aggravation or looking for a game to team up in, I'd avoid this one.

I can't recommend this game enough to anyone who likes exploration, lore, sci-fi and even fantasy elements. The game is vast allowing you to traverse an entire galaxy of what must be over 100's of planets on an individual scale. That coupled with the ease to play however you like and the constantly changing things you encounter, this game easily rings as my favorite of 2013. The love, dedication and pure desire to make people have an amazing experience is easily see-able in this game and it's still only in beta! If you're going to put 15 dollars down on something, make sure it's starbound! You'll get alot more than 15 dollars worth of content!