Yeah a lot of the tutorial and the low-level missions are like that, but once you get into some cruisers/battlecruisers you start unlocking all kinds of fun PvE stuff like escalations/DED sites, wormhole ratting, etc. And PvP is a lot of fun once you get over the fear of losing ships, especially with a good group. I really enjoy flying support roles, being the most irritating ship on the field is always fun and often hilarious
Flying spaceships around and shooting things! Learning curve is definitely steep but it's a lot of fun even while you're figuring out wtf you're doing, and there's tons of variety in what you can do.
Some good choices on there, if #1 wasn't on the list I was gonna complain. Could definitely use some Mahler and Schnittke and I'd choose different works for some of the composers but solid overall.
They've got Seth Dickinson as part of the writing team and literally everything I've read of his is fantastic, including game stuff and his novels and short stories, so I'm hopeful.
Take my opinion with a slight grain of salt because it's been at least a decade since I read the book and a half of the series that I got through, but from what I recall the books just didn't really have much to them - flat characters, awkward dialogue, and the actual prose itself was pretty bad. It was also boring enough that I just didn't care about anything that was happening, and I'd read enough good fantasy by the time I read Eragon that its flaws were hard to look past - I know the dude was a teenager when he wrote it, but that doesn't make the work magically better. Not trying to shit on anybody's parade, but it just really wasn't my thing.
Bastion, Hades, Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, and Tyranny (even if the last act is rushed in the last two) come to mind for me