Loving it.... I love my modern space flying games... In order of discovery, Oolite, Galaxy on Fire 2, Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, Dual Universe and now Everspace 2.... I love that it combines the storyline style plot like their earlier game GOF2 with proper 6 degrees of freedom, HOTAS/HOSAS+Rudder Pedal support.
The Open Game World is a Looter/Shooter so enemies/rewards are constantly and gently scaled to your level, meaning that the story generally retains the interest of the player regardless of play style, be it main goal driven or side quest heavy... You can't max out on side quests and then steamroller over the main enemies, for example.
Players will either accept or dislike this feature... And while I usually don't like this kind of contrivance from a "realism" lore/world building viewpoint (And I think Cyberpunk 2077 which uses the same system sucks, for example), I find it somehow works in this game so far after 20 hours of playing.
The combat is frenetic and well graded to never be impossible or frustrating while being hard enough to pose a constant challenge.
Looking forward to spending more time with this title.
Worth every dollar.