It's not without issues.
Firstly there is the mission structure. If you do missions you get XP, XP means higher ranks. As you go up ranks you get bigger missions to take down bigger ships. Theoretically this works well, only the lower missions are locked off as you increase in rank, so if you've spent your gold buying things other than bigger ships and better equipment (if you've gimped yourself in other words) then you're out of luck.
Secondly there is the server issue. The servers have a limit of 2000 players, and in a bizarre design decision the ONLY data shared between servers is your faction and your rank/XP. No gold or ships. In other words, if you're an admiral or something and you've never played on server 2, only server 1, then you're still going to be playing in a basic cutter. Trying to take on two or more ships at once, even basic stuff like brigs, in a basic cutter just doesn't bear thinking about.
Thirdly there is, again, the server issue. Servers are often full at the moment (although I haven't played it for a week so maybe it's settled down now). When the servers are full that's it - you are in a queue for sometimes as long as 40 minutes before you can play. That a game can be put on sale like this, when you can't even play it when you want to, is pretty mind-blowing.
Fourthly there is community. It is, at present, pretty toxic. Maybe I'm just spoiled from playing Elite and Chaos Reborn so much that I expect people to act like people, but the Naval Action community, at least on Steam, puts me in the mind of an inner city school outing. This game is complex with a steep learning curve, there is no tutorial, when people showed up to ask questions the collective response from the majority of the community was to throw a tantrum.
(open world, trading, pirating etc)
