After nearly 80 hours in X-Plane 11, I can happily say that it's not worth it in 2023, and theres more to it than the existence of MFS2020, however I will be mentioning it in this review

You may be wondering how many hours I've actually FLOWN in X-Plane 11, and I can happily say it's only around 20 hours. The rest? The painful setup of addons, primarily the scenery where you have to manually set up layers because Laminar wasn't smart enough to code it correctly on their end. Many of the payware sceneries are also expensive, and good luck making sure all 20 libraries needed for one scenery are installed and layered correctly. Don't even get me started with Ortho4XP, and other ways to install scenery tiles.

Speaking of add-ons, the out-of-the-box experience is so underwhelming and small that it's literally required to install third party add-ons such as the Zibo 737-800X (which is actually amazing - great job Zibo!), and 20 plug-ins (conservative estimate). When the first tips you get when asking for advice from seasoned X-Plane users involves installing a metric ton of add-ons, you know something went wrong at Laminar Research. On top of this, the majority of quality aircraft (even in the middle-of-the-market in complexity) are egregiously expensive. For example, the Boeing 737-300 from IXEG & X-Aviation, which cant (from my experience) even do a hold at a waypoint and is just converted from the ancient X-Plane 10, is $70. $70!!! While this isn't necessarily Laminar's fault, it is something to note if you wish to use X-Plane 11.

Don't even get me started with the aforementioned plug-ins. Want live weather that isn't just local METARs taped together? Here, spend $40-$70 on a weather engine (that Laminar could have added as default during X-Plane 11's development cycle!)

Once all of these add-ons are installed, you'll have to pray that the coding equivalent of (now wet with all of the installations you just made) duct-tape that seemingly holds X-Plane 11 together (after 11 iterations worth of code (?)) works, and that your hard drive isn't more stuffed than you after a dinner at Grandma's. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. Such is the motto of the grand scheme of life, I guess.

However, there are a few pros:
1. There is a massive selection of add-ons and third party aircraft to choose from
2. The aircraft feel great. Personally, not enough to create the cult following that Laminar's flight model gets, but they do feel great.
3. UI is very easy to navigate, and controls are easy to set up.
4. Good performance
5. Pretty good graphics, however Laminar might have wanted to re-check how shadows worked before launching back in 2016 - only your aircraft has shadows!

Now, for my real X-Planers out there, you've probably noticed that I have nearly 1100 hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and are now working to doxx me, kidnap me, and sacrifice me to The Great Austin Meyer. Yes, I'm not lying when I say that a couple dozen of those were used to set up and whatnot, but it didn't make me feel like I was speedrunning a migraine, and it made me feel like I was using a piece of software that wasn't created during the Crustacean Era.

X-Plane 12, you say? What's that? Oh yeah... that exists... I guess. Anyway! Main point being, X-Plane 11 is no longer the industry standard. Even though its $30 more (and it's own issues), MFS2020 is a much less frustrating experience, with much more to offer out-of-the-box. However, if you've already poured a decent fraction of the US Defense budget and your lifetime into getting X-Plane perfectly calibrated for your experience, all power to you.

See y'all in the skies, Captains!