No Man's Sky. Hype train choo choo!
Yes, I worry about this too. I've seen some very excited No Man's Sky communities and I think a big deal here is how easy it is to confuse procedurally generated content with "immense content". Procedural generation is about introducing variations, but it still needs a hand crafted set to pick from. Otherwise the universe can well be packed with stuff, but in boring variations. If you roll a dice, there are usually six possibilities for the outcome, but you're still just looking at a dice. So I try to be cautiously optimistic about the game. I of course want it to succeed, but I try to keep in mind that this will still just be a computer game from a small game developer company with limited resources. In the end, I think it will be a game similar to a "god game" or maybe a Roguelike, or something like that. A sandbox game which can be fun to spend some time with now and then. I don't think it will revolutionize the industry and I don't think procedural generation will. It is not even a new concept.
Every time I hear mention of the game Spore, I think part of me dies. Such a missed opportunity. Civilization V does really well as a substitute for the the civilization stage (duh) of it though.
I'm kind of in the same boat as you, but the fact that there will be so much to explore and it all will be somewhat different gives me hope. In the end it'll at least be a fun game to jump into and find a new planet to explore for an hour.
Me too. Much of the discussion around the game is "what do you DO???" Honestly, I'd be happy if the game is just high fidelity Proteus in space. Give me an interesting universe to explore, relax, and see pretty things. I can listen to podcasts and walk around in Minecraft survival mode and have a good time stumbling across interesting things. Anything No Man's Sky gives me beyond that is gravy. The footage I saw from E3 seems like the game may in fact have a bit more meat on it's bones, which is exciting. I'm hoping for more, but my expectations are pretty low as far as features and systems, just give me a pretty space to fly around in and explore.