2 hours is more than enough for general impression IMO. Just imagine watching a 2 hour movie that is boring AF. I can’t judge them for quiting.
2 hours doesn’t let you experience even 10% of what a game like this usually offer, less alone giving you time to tinker with the systems and see if they actually work, and furthermore if they are actually fun once you’re good at them.
Of course I agree. But it’s still not that great game design, if you are bored for hours. It’s like people telling me about tv show that gets good after first season. What should I do until then… :)
How else do you explain to someone what dwarf fortress is, for example? You need dozens of hours just to get the grasp of mechanics and UI, less alone to figure out whether you even like the game. Same goes for many bigger games, for example mount and blade (bannerlord) starts off strong with a promise of you establishing and leading a kingdom but once you actually reach that part through tedious grind, you realize it was all for nothing and the game’s a badly designed, shallow, unfinished sandbox with absolutely no vision or execution in that regard. Good luck getting to that conclusion without already investing at least 50 mediocre hours in it though.
I think there are too many exceptions to this that the best way to truly know is to play it for yourself. I hated Death Stranding, Control, Days Gone, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Fallout 3 and many other games in their initial few hours, but as they opened up they quickly became my one of my favourites. I’ve started my first playthrough of Witcher 3 and in the first 3 hours I’m not yet impressed, but I’ll give it a good chance before dropping it. Not sure if Starfield is any good but given its systems, it’ll probably need some buildup time I guess.