Thanks for your No Mans Sky review.
This is exactly what I was beginning to feel after playing just 2hrs: everything is just being made more complicated than it would have needed to be (also the inventory controls/management are a mess in general). Which is sad since I love the exploration part :/

"It's almost fun fighting off space pirates. It's almost fun, so close to fun, but it's not. It's just not fun."

That sounds like "Looter Shooters" or grind games to me. People play them because getting a better item is almost fun--the next item will be better, though. And the next item is almost fun, but you have to keep playing, because the fun is in chasing the fun!