I bought this game after experiencing DCS and I can say that it's simpler and way more optimized. You still have to purchase most aircraft, expect to be dropping a lot of money on a proper flight setup too.

If you have the money to go all out, buy this game, it's worth it especially as an entry level into the flight simulator community.

You HAVE to have friends to play this. You will enjoy yourself listening to the girly screams of your fellow employees whilst playing this game. My personal favorite entity is the Maneater, so cute, but also really scary.

Also you need to mod this game when you've felt like you've completed it or have gotten bored. I personally recommend non-intrusive mods like Skinwalkers & YippeeMod to keep the experience vanilla.