Not everything needs to be realistic, but there are more of these artsy looking games out than realistic looking games. I liked Borderlands gameplay. I hated the look of Borderlands. Some people prefer to look at the ocean. Others prefer to look at a painting of the ocean. I'm not into paintings.

I'm still not sure. Maybe for $20. Maybe...
My biggest turnoff is always online, and it just seems to have too much downtime. I just don't feel excitement for potentially spending an hour or two exploring and finding nothing...

On a Nintendo console? Yes. On other consoles? Hell no!

This is an indie game, realism that looks good takes up a lot of resources.

There are a ton of indie games that have been coming out in the last couple of years. Check on Steam. There are so many games that have 8 and 16-bit "retro" looks, and artsy feel. Take Minecraft for example. That game looks like crap, but yet with one resource pack, and one shader pack I can get a realistic look to the whole thing. Guess how much money that cost? Zero dollars. Someone made the shaders and the texture packs in their spare time, and they sold it for zero dollars. Explain to me how an indie developer can't do that, but Joe Shmoe, who has his own job, can.

I thought I read you can play it offline, maybe not.

I'm still cautiously optimistic about this game. It's gorgeous, but I'm concerned how the open world will be integrated into its gameplay.

Im sick of hearing about it, I just want to play it.

As it stands now, this game is a singleplayer game with a miniscule possibility that you could happen upon another player. I'm not accusing you of this but I'm seeing more and more people asking this same question NOT because they don't know the answer but because they want to draw negative attention to it. I saw the same thing with Driveclub over at Gaf recently when someone started a thread called: 'Driveclub doesn't have splitscreen ... really?' It's well known now but clearly the guy who started the thread just wanted to stir the mud. Like I said, I'm not accusing you of doing this I'm just noting trends and wouldn't mind betting this will be the go to argument for those who want to knock it.

This is actually something that suits me. When I say I don't like always online is not because of internet itself, I am automatically online when I play. I just don't want to deal with other people entering my game.

I disliked that in Destiny. Far Cry 4 nicely had an option to not have others join the game, I loved that and always used it.

You can always play it offline of course. I would imagine because logic suggests this, that if you DO play it online, the chances of meeting someone grows as you get closer to the centre of the galaxy.