Well I've never played NMS but I've got a metric tonne of time in Elite. It doesnt hold your hand at all, mistakes and over-confidence early on are punished brutally. The grind can also be very very real. Also, you arent the all-conquering hero, you're another brick in the wall. However its stunningly beautiful, has an intriguing slow-burn background narrative and once you finally clamber over the learning cliff, its very rewarding. Bugs? Yeah they happen, but FDEV normally squash them fairly fast, and should you lose credits unfairly to a bug, submitting a ticket usually sees you re-imbursed within 24 hours. Also, theres a steady stream of new content and features. At the moment, an Alien race is making its appearance, and future plans involve planets with atmospheres being landable (currently only barren moons etc are landable) and theres been an increase in talk about walking around ships and stations...