Recent reviews by DoubleCup

The game felt lackluster and more repetitive than other similar games. Minimal content made it seem hardly worth its price WITH my nostalgia so I refunded it. They added really almost nothing extra, barely polished, then released the game at a higher cost. Absolutely not worth it sadly

Used to LOVE this game. One of THE definitive space sims in its heyday After the community begging for new ships for quite some time, they added 2 total so far in 9 years.
Both of which are released into"early access" meaning you pay real money to use it or wait a few months. The second ship just released into its "EA" and as of writing the first is still only purchasable with the premium currency. Frontier lost millions of dollars in 2023 so don't expect it to change anytime soon either.
How the mighty have fallen

Absolute gem. Takes the series in a new direction with plenty of throwbacks and things to still make it feel like AC

Before you see that this is 'infestation' and see my in-game time and assume those same ♥♥♥♥ guys are back again, take a second, calm down, and do some research on your own. If you did that you'd realize this is in fact NOT the same devs. Another team now has rights to this game. That being said I've seen people ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the cash shop. I have experienced everything this game has to offer and have not paid a dime. I understand the hostilities towards the old devs, everyone hates em. But this game has made some strides since Titov and his entourage and should, at the very least, be judged again with the knowledge that there is no longer a 'Sergey Titov' invlved in its development.

Other games sergey has had his hand in, in case you didn't know and so you can see its pretty much just him : infestation classic (current name of old infestation that everyone would laugh at and ♥♥♥♥♥ about), Romero's aftermath, and shattered skies.

This as a free to play is beyond fair and its enjoyable for me and my friends, which is what matters.
They improved the game in various small ways and released it in a model that you can earn everything without spending a dime, why shouldn't this be recommended?