More like Sea of WHY IS IT $60?

I have been anticipating this game for a year. I've always wanted a solid piratey game. Something that is a good mixture of Guns of Icarus and an open world RPG with character creation, lore, quests ect. Sea of Thieves sounded like it could potentially come close to what I've dreamed of for forever.
And I mean, it's pretty dang close. But from the reviews and gameplays I've seen, content-wise, it looks more like a $30 game. There's probably a few hours worth of game play before it gets boring.

I'd love to play it myself and get my own solid opinion on it, but just from what I've seen, I'm afraid I would be making another No Man Sky splurge. A whole lot of cash for a short lived excitement.

I don't wanna sound spoiled and be all "curse you Rare, you messed up!"
Nah, it does look like it is still a fun game. Just not $60 fun, for me. For most reviews I've seen, rather. It's disappointing and all I can hope is that Rare might plan some future updates to flesh out the game a bit more.

Discuss!
Have you played?
Are you in the same boat pun maybe intended as me?
What do you think of this game, what they were going for, and what it ended up being like?