There's a severe lack of variety in the mission design, with side missions only following two set patterns, just in different locations. It's either "Go here, and shoot down these ships" or "Go here, shoot down these ships, and arrest one of the pilots." That's it. If you're going to play this, I would recommend avoiding side missions for the most part, and trying to get into trading as your way of making money instead, which is more of a subtle pleasure. You'll need to go through the main missions though, and they're almost just as predictable, giving you more story, but still always devolving into "Go here and shoot down these ships" or "We're ambushed! Shoot down these ships!..." I feel like there are more interesting and creative objectives they could have given us than that. Maybe more things to do as well? It all feels very bare-bones.
I wouldn't mind it being so combat-focused if the combat was more intricate, but it's really quite simplistic and arcadey. It's not simple in an easy way though. Far from it. Sometimes what it really comes down to isn't your skill in dogfighting, but how many shield batteries and nanobots you have stored in your inventory to repair the inevitable, unrelenting damage you'll receive. You'll be constantly restocking on those, and they're not cheap. Combat can devolve into mindlessly circling around and holding down the fire button, while hammering your F and G keys to repair shield and armor damage that you just can't avoid.
Enemy ships never give you a moment of peace either. It's difficult to just explore space at your own leisure without being attacked constantly. I get that this is supposed to be a hostile universe, but the game really needs to leave me alone more often. Give me some downtime, because downtime is what makes the action means something... You can counteract this by spending money to improve your standing with the different groups in the game, but it can get very expensive to do so, and it's always a temporary measure if you're playing through the story, which will skew your reputation one way.
There is a certain wonder to the galaxy though, and you can tell that the developers had some great ideas they couldn't really explore to their full extent. I like the atmosphere a lot, in spite of the awkward voice acting. It's an interesting, unique and accessible space sim, let down by shallowness and repetition. Quite an alluring game to start with, but it feels lacking in content, and the combat isn't good enough to carry the game through its duration.