I’ve been playing this game some over the past few days. I have not yet joined the shared server, but I did have a chance to try multi-player with a friend.
So far, I like the game a lot. I agree that combat is awkward, but I haven’t really been focusing on that. (I never even fought a lot of the bosses in Terraria, as much as I played that game.) However, I have already come across some entertaining scenarios, such as a raid on a high-tech prison. It’s also nice that you can hire NPC crew members with combat abilities.
It might get a little stale after I have seen all of the biomes and types of civilization you can come across, and it may be overshadowed to some degree by No Man’s Sky in the near future, but I’m having fun visiting different worlds, upgrading my ship, etc. The game has more to it than I’d expected, but I’d probably like it even if were nothing more than a prettier Terraria.