Star Citizen is flawed in major ways, but it's still my favorite game even unfinished. It does things no other game does. It's a broken, incomplete experience, but it is still my favorite thing regardless.
It's easy to hate on it from the outside. I was an early backer and I echoed the sentiment many of these articles have. Last December I hopped into the Alpha with a friend and after playing it every week for the past 9 months I have to say that while I acknowledge the slow and flawed development, they made something I think is awesome today. It's maybe never coming out, but there's a sandbox today that's been worth exploring.
Yeah no one can argue that it isn't a giant mismanaged, drastically overdue mess, but it's literally the only game of its kind right now, I haven't played in a little while now, but earlier on I put easily hundreds of hours into it
That being said, God I wish they'd get their shit together and get the damn thing finished.. At least just SQ42..
The cheapest buy-in some years ago was like $35, and everything above that is like bigger ships and insurance on those ships if they get destroyed, IIRC.
I've played the $35 buy in, and it has a fun dogfight mode, a fun FPS mode, and a buggy open world sandbox mode. It's more of a space game than Sea of Thieves is a pirate game, and lots of people loved that one even though you can see all it has to offer in an hour and a half.
I suppose it was ambiguous from the way I phrased it, but just that $35, back in like 2014. The equivalent these days when it's not on sale appears to be $45. Probably the last time I checked in on it was 2019-ish, but I ought to get access if Squadron 42 ever happens. At this rate, assuming it does happen some day, some of the actors they performance captured will be dead by then; plenty of them were getting on in years back when they first announced the cast. It's definitely not the worst $35 I ever spent though.
I'd say the lowest price point is still fun. I have lots of friends in my org who haven't spent over 35 dollars. You can earn money and buy ships in game, or rent them. There are plenty of zero to hero videos on YouTube where people start with nothing. I've spent money on the game, true, but I'm often flying the cheap ships because they're more fun to fly than the expensive ones. A cutlass black can be bought in game for very little, and it's my favorite ship to daily.