Starting off, X-Plane is not eye candy by any means. If you are looking for a flight sim that is built for VFR with landmarks, remarkable visuals, and a solid default weather system then I would suggest MSFS, not XP. But, if you are looking for good flight physics and want to escape the arcade feeling that MSFS can give you in some certain ways, then XP is right for you. The community is what makes XP worth it. The amount of freeware plugins, beautiful scenery such as ZeroDollarPayware makes the game worth it alone. When you buy this game, expect to spend more on plugins, aircraft and such. The aircraft that are available for XP might not be comparable to FSLabs, but some GA planes available such as the CL650 are out of this world detailed. It just boils down to what you are looking for. Overall, I love the game. As said previously, even though by all means it's not eye-candy, it still gives you the avgeek experience.