I continue to feel bad for all the folk that got duped by the No Man's Sky hype.
While No Man's Sky was terrible at release the newest update (1.3 I believe) added in quite a bit of content as well as a decent story mode and was on sale on Steam for under $20 when I got it. It's not (IMO) as complete as Elite: Dangerous is but I feel like it's easier to jump in and play although I hope it eventually gets VR support as it's fun to use in ED.