Let me start of by saying, if you're hesitant because of bugs and glitches and the "always online" part, wait either for full release or at least until they release the offline mode which is in the works, confirmed by the developers on their Discord.

Now to the game and my thoughts.
The always online is frustrating when playing solo but that will soon be fixed. Hopefully my realm will be as it is. When playing co-op I've had some issues with disconnections but I could always log right back into the realm. I also noticed it mostly disconnected me when I entered a portal at the same time as my friend so I started entering after him and seems to be working, not 100% sure but it's something.

The combat: People are complaining about boring combat. I hope they say the same about Skyrim and Fallout 4 and similar games then. What is Skyrim? Spam left click until the enemy is dead. Same here except that here you want to aim a little bit even with melee weapon because striking an enemy on the head will deal bonus damage so that's something to think of. It's the most satisfying sound when you hit the enemy that way.
All weapons/tools (your tools are your weapons basically) are good at different things as well. There's a thought behind the tools, at least that's the impression I get. I haven't tried the hammer yet so I'm not sure how well that weapon works against enemies but for example, the pickaxe is much more effective against machines than an axe but axes are slightly faster to swing with plus their attack swings can at times be better against animals, easier to hit their heads.

I've only unlocked the first pistol you get, it wont take you 30 hours to do that btw, I've spent 50% of my time co-op and 50% solo on 2 different characters so maybe around 8-14 hours before the first pistol depending on how quickly you go through the quests.
The first pistol is a nice looking one, good design, and as for the combat and effectiveness of it, the game becomes something else when you unlock it. Ammo will be needed, a lot of it but it's a very nice addition to my arsenal. It's not very effective against machines though.
I haven't unlocked any real offensive magic yet but using magic in combat is definitely viable and useful. It's a nice way of doing magic, connecting it too your weapons and the animations are really nice. Looking very much forward to unlocking more.

Let's touch on the bugs and all that crap. They exist, they annoy me, I want them gone, the developer is working hard at fixing them and I wish them the best. The end!

The companions you get, you can have 1 each per playing so a full team of 6 players will have 6 companions as well, they are useful but stupid. They will become your pack mules like in Skyrim, they'll carry all the ore and wood and such for then you're out looking for material. I can't recommend unlocking chests for them, at least not the chest with wood as they will use all wood to ignite fires in your smelters and cooking stations so beware of that, you might loose a bit of wood there. You might be burning your nice carved wood when making those ingots. I hope the developers implement a way to lock out the companions from crafting stations.

Lastly I want to mention the visuals. On my PC they are stunning. Can't remember what settings I'm playing at but the game looks very good. Except for the character faces for some reason. The character creator is really nice with some unique elements to it like ancestry and a sort of mold tool to make you look a certain way depending on those ancestors you choose, a nice touch. But the faces look a bit... Horrible is the best word here actually.