Hate to come in and just bash the game as I'm sure everyone has done in the 200 pages or so I couldn't read here. I will try to spin my straw opinions into bronze at least for the productivity of the thread.
I played a few hours and was worn down by the consistent sluggishness of all elements of the game. The menu was extremely slow, the dialogue was at a snail's pace, the intro sequence was more slow Bethesda bullshit. Gray squares of characters were talking to you and giving you sloppy world building. Traversal was slow, The loading screens were slow. Slow, slow, slow. This wears down on a player either consciously or not. I guess in my old age I am less tolerant of this sort of chaff in games. I love other Bethesda games because they don't waste my time, and I am always able to disengage from the story and leave and go do something else.
In this game, I tried to find some fun by going on a rampage, hitting a trash can robot that didn't fall over or say anything, and then get arrested by another dead-eyed NPC. I went to jail and it started a new quest where the warden slowly walks in to the room and starts yapping to me. Since being arrested, about 5 minutes had passed, and I realized it was going to take at least another 5 or 10 to accept the quest and be sent back to the sandbox. Once my brain realized I needed to take at least 5 or 6 steps to resume having fun again, it overloaded and I quit, never to play again.
I was really surprised to see all of the "hype" and disillusionment after the first major gameplay trailer dropped, showing the lifeless NPC's, boring combat, and bland ass art design. It's perplexing seeing lifelong Blizzard, Bethesda, and Bioware fans simultaneously rage and disavow their favorite company, and then froth at the mouth when a new game is released. Just look at people still excited for Elder Scrolls 6, when Starfield showed all the soul and fun elements of Bethesda are gone, and only their stubborn ham-fisted writers and lazy devs remain.