After Reviewing many many reviews, most of which were negative, I asked myself why this game was so hated. I have stuck with the game since a few days after its initial release and, while it does have a few shortcomings, I am extremely impressed with this game and plan on continuing to play it, and while it does have some shortcomings, the game itself is an extremely good game for an early access game. I look forward to seeing what the official release will bring.

Before jumping into a constructive breakdown of what I have experienced in this game I wish to note the main source of negative reviews on this game. People are voting negative because of the games networking issues and general bugs, however what many people who posts those reviews fail to realize is that THIS GAME IS NOT COMPLETE! Please avoid making reviews directly based upon bugs until the game has been officially released!

1. Sandbox: Obviously this games number one purpose, those who play Minecraft, Starmade, Kerbal Space Program, No Man's Sky, or even Garry's Mod should at least find some measure of satisfaction with this game, if not immense satisfaction. You are able to mine ore/terrain in a completely destructible voxel environment, or simply throw down a few warheads to blow up a massive hole to live in, while at the same time being able to make ships or even automated machines to do the mining for you. You are able to build ships and stations from scratch, and automate their construction and semi-automate their repair even when some sections are missing. (thank you projectors!) With that same block you are able to create saved ships from a projection as well. When this game was in its earlier renditions, I even went so far as to develop a miner that could eat a smaller asteroid in nearly two passes. Back then I was sad because I couldn't share the project with anyone or easily remake it, but now you are able to save it locally or upload it to the workshop! (wish I wouldn't have deleted that save!)
   
   
2. Development: Every Thursday, whether or not I am looking to play the game, I always check the update notes, because every Thursday Keen does a software update on the game. This is the only game I have ever done this with, and generally I ignore update notes unless its a multi GB update. Why, you may ask, do I pay attention to the more numerous and minor updates instead of paying attention to other games with fewer, more comprehensive updates? The answer is simple. This game has gone above and beyond my expectations when I first bought it, added many more features than I expected, and even added some features the devs said they probably wouldn't add *cough* planets *cough*. Never before have I been so tied to a games development. Not only that, but with each update comes assurance that the devs are always working on the game and always moving it forward, however so slowly it may be going at times. Beyond that, the game itself has come a long ways from its initial relase. In the above section, the miner that you see in the picture used to make it so pretty much no one could move effectively because the simulation speed was brought down to 0.3 out of 1 every time it turns on. Now, however, after remaking a similar miner on a much more crowded server, the simulation speed was staying stable at around 0.8.
   
   
3. Workshop Integration: This is the biggest, and best reason to get this game. As of the time this was typed up, space engineers has 193,072 items on the workshop ranging from small ship blueprints, to mods that add drills the size of your entire starter ship! The community is constantly adding many cool and new mods and creations that it is doubtful you will tire of it soon. From the well known Azimuth mod, to the more specialized SANCHINCORP hoverbike mod, or even to creating your own mod so you can have what you want in the game!
   
   
4. Combat: "Now whats the point of having this big destroyer if you dont have a target for it?" you might ask. Well there are plenty of places to prove your mettle in combat if building massive stations or designing mining ships just isn't your thing. EVE online players, be careful as you may get sucked into this one. Not only are you able to engage and defend agains hostile NPCs, but factions get taken into effect and you may very well find that you and your faction/friends are being assaulted by another faction or group. Or, maybe you were on a mining trip and stumbled upon a well tucked away base. You mark your location and come back with the big guns to neutralise the defenses, then loot their containers while they are away or even salvage the entire station/ship.

All in all, these are the primary things that I believe contribute and make up this game. Believe me when I say that there are many other things that are awesome to this game that I haven't included.

1. Networking and Stability: One of the games biggest faults is its networking and communication between peers. I cannot tell you how many times I have spent hours upon hours or even days making ships, mining for resources, and welding them, only to have them completely destroyed by an errant small ship de-syncing and tearing through it like an ICBM. This issue, while not nearly as abhorrent as it was before, is still present and continues to be a source of fear and greif with this game. I have ragequit more than once because of something getting destroyed due to de-syncing.
   
   
2. Exiting Planet Gravity: While seemingly a small thing, the simple act of exiting a planets gravity is near impossible to do if you started on the planet in the first place. Planets are abundant in pretty much every ore, however they do not have platinum, which you need for making the non atmospheric thrusters. Hydrogen thrusters, while fast and capable, run out of fuel so fast its not even funny. It took me over 43 different ship designs, from the ground up, before I finally gave in and snagged a ship from the workshop, which still didnt get me to where I needed to be because I ran out of fuel shortly after exiting the atmosphere.
   
   
3. Time Consumption: This game can and will EAT your time up as my friend TwoPheat is a great example of. Your game will go and go and you will continue to perform tasks slowly reaching your goal, then you glance at the clock and realize that you probably should have been asleep 3 hours ago. While some people might see it as a great sign, I find it quite irritating coming into work an hour late because I got used to performing the same menial task over and over and over, that I lost my sense of time. Needless to say, after that happened a few times I, setup an alarm to let me know when to sleep and that fixed it.
   
   
4. Performance: While not nearly as intensive as it used to be, Space Engineers is still a very demanding game. Expect it to eat up your system performance, especially when dealing with ship to ship combat engagements.

Space Engineers, despite still being in Early Access and not being a complete game, can give you immense satisfaction and enjoyment despite still being plagued by a few unavoidable bugs. There are many things that you can do, and an almost exponentially higher number of things you can make so long as you are willing to invest the time to make it.
I would highly recommend getting this game if you are looking for a good sandbox game.


Note: Your ships may end up looking Phallic in nature, don't worry thats normal, just dont make them pink.