I'll break my response down.
Original Premise: A single player campaign (that you could do drop in drop out multiplayer with friends) that after completion would open up into the full multiplayer universe and also host your own private servers sounded like an ambitious but superb idea. However, some of the claims made early on were very eyebrow raising from the scope vs the budget they claimed they needed as well as some extremely aggressive timelines for release. However, they showed off a very nice demo of the game and strongly implied it was work they had already done... this turned out to be not true.
Stretch Goals: This is when the red flags really started to be raised. The amounts asked vs what they promised to deliver for that money made zero sense. It was like they were just making up numbers and stuff to add for those numbers.
65 million project: It had ballooned from a 5.5 million best damn space sim ever to a 65 million even better damn space sim ever, and yet, they seemed to be lacking a coherent plan for delivery. The project was now being largely funded by the sale of ships, raising the spectre of pay to win and the scope had balooned beyond recognition. At this point they were still claiming they could do it in just a few years and were still talking about a 2015 release date for what was now the separate SQ42 single player campaign and heavily implying SC wasn't far behind in terms of release. Answer the Call.
Current state: Still lacking in core features and a very buggy alpha with somewhere in the region of 500 million dollars raised, and they still haven't delivered on the content they said they could for 5.5 million in 2-3 years. Its now 9 years later. Yes, it looks pretty, many games do. Yes, it has some nice features (when they work). But its still just got one incomplete system out over 110 sold to backers, not to mention all the other stretch goals they promised, many of which are still not implemented. The only consistent thing is the ship pipeline, which has also grown like a monster.
Chris Roberts, his history: A lot of people backed SC based on the fact that it was Chris Roberts who was doing the kickstarter. They remember his earlier games and thought that he could achieve his vision. Problem is, when you look at his history there is a common thread. Overly ambitious projects that fail to deliver on what was planned. After Strike Commander CR acknowledge that he tried to do more than was possible. And again, with Freelancer, he promised effectively the Best Damn Space Sim Ever, but as the deadline was approaching, it turned out that they hadn't got a working game and it was still missing a lot of features that would have set it apart from other space sims. Microsoft stepping in, effectively buying CR out, giving him "Special Thanks" on the credits, and it still took them 2 more years to get a decent game released that was still a long way from what was announced it would be. There's a lot more to it than this, and there is a really good article about CR and his history called the Chris Roberts Theory of Everything. Its a fascinating insight into how CR works and it includes a lot of quotes from CR himself and people who have worked with him.
See:
https://gameranx.com/updates/id/70033/article/the-chris-roberts-theory-of-everything/
CIG, development, and project management: CIG upper management is staffed with family, old associates, and cronies. Many of whom are from the old school days of software development where you got a few clever guys together and pushed out a game. It seems most of them never really learned how to do Agile development (or any other methodology for that matter). There have been a number of red flags project management-wise over the years that would explain why the game is still in the state it is in. I could go on more about this, but this post is getting big enough already. However, a look at the various roadmaps CIG have had over the years, the constant slippage of items that were slated to come not appearing, and most stark, their absoloute refusal to talk about release dates most of the time, probably because every time they have discussed release dates, those dates went by, by months, and eventually years.
Lies, damn lies, and marketing: For me, this is one of the main issues i have with CIG and why i'll probably not buy the game even if they do release a half decent space sim at the end. CIG have consistently lied to or mislead backers from day 1. From the highly misrepresentative launch video, which turned out to have been created by Crytek to CIG's claims of the current state of the game, year after year, when it turned out to be not true. Chris, Sandi, and Erin all stated in 2014 and 2015 that SQ42 was nearly finished and Chapter 1 would release in 2015. It didn't. It still hasn't released, 6 years later. It still doesn't have a release date. They must have known it was nowhere near ready for release. And if you look at what is required for SQ42 to release, we can see from CIG's own roadmaps them working on things required for SQ42 in 2018 and beyond... so how could SQ42 be almost ready for release if they didn't get around working on tech and content for it until many years later? And there are other statements, such as CR in 2015 saying that by the end of 2015 backers would get everything they had pledged for. That would have been both SQ42 and SC with 110 systems with all the other features that CIG to that point had promised backers. That was simply a bald faced lie. Then you have the spaceship sales, which have been discussed plenty. FOMO is rife. Limited numbers of certain ships. LTI only coming with certain ships. Warbond sales. And more. And of course, they grey market, which CIG have facilitated by making things work as they do.
Similarity with other projects: There are common threads between certain crowdfunded games that fail to release or release in a much worse state than backers were led to hope for. Grand claims of what will be produced. Massive scope. Never been done before! Often a single charismatic figure at the lead who talks a lot about what will be achieved within a relatively short amount of time with a relatively small budget, because they are so great, they can do it, while greedy publishers will take more money and more time to deliver the same. And as the project goes on, and they show off plenty of fancy looking stuff, somehow things just don't come together. They might release something playable, and of course, its alpha, which provides a nice excuse for why there are problems. ITS ALPHA! But don't worry, everything will be much better when its finished. Just ignore the problems for now, you're just testing it anyway. However, unlike other public alphas, these alphas never seem to come to an end. They developers keep asking for more money. Just a bit more is needed. Once the next bit is done, things will really start to come together. They start to monetize more things. Bigger, better, or different. And the requests for funding never stop. Those who pledge the most get special status and of course, in-game benefits (at least, in theory). The money raised sometimes being tens or even hundreds times more than was originally stated as being needed... and yes, the scope may have increased, but they still don't deliver on the scope of the game they initially promised.
See: Shroud of the Avatar and Chronicles of Elyria
What will be the outcome?: Really hard to say as despite all the red flags in relation to the project there are still plenty of people willing to continue giving CIG money. However, i will state that it is my firm belief that backers will never get the game they paid for. Not even close. Not even if they give CIG another 10 years and another 500 million dollars. CIG have sold backers dreams, and that is all it will ever be. Even if CIG had competent leadership, i'm doubtful anyone could deliver on what CIG sold to backers. Not just the 65 million dollars stretch goal, but the 1000+ times Chris said "yes" to questions on 10 For the Chairman. Will there be a decent space game released eventually? Maybe... possibly. Give CIG another few years, and if there is enough pressure, from Calders or perhaps financial, they may be pushed to put a release label on what they have, polish it, and hope for the best. They might have a few systems by then and a more more working gameplay loops.
However, no matter what they release, they will find themselves facing certain criticisms, the first will be something like "how many hundreds of million and how many years for this?". They have simply squandered too much time and too much money to produce anything less than the BDSSE. But, its not going to be the BDSSE. That ship sailed a long time ago. The second criticism will be along the lines of "this isn't what was paid for". Again, i refer back to CIGs statements about what they game will be like, 10FtC, Inside Star Citizen, Pillar Talk, Reverse the Verse, and all their other marketing videos where the talking heads talked about what they were doing to the game and what they were adding.
People backed the game based on what they were told they were doing, because they trusted CIG, they believed in the "open development".
But, i'm not sure they will ever dare to put a release label on SC. They will call it early access or something, and then keep that going for years, while they slowly increment numbers without calling it a release. SQ42 they do have to release at some point though... and assuming they can get it into a releasable form, i think it will be an interesting indicator showing what sort of game CIG can produce.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk, if someone hasn't already posted it for you and you haven't already seen it, i highly recommend the Sunk Cost Galaxy series by Bootcha, an ex-investor in Star Citizen (note, investor, not backer - this was early days when CR was scrounging together much smaller sums than he has now in order to make the game, before he learned people will give you lots of money for pictures of spaceships and dreams.txt).
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU3uEBUBIEA&list=PL7SIP0NDfM2yyHKfRmCAociCcJKZHHY0E
The only negative about this YT series is that its development speed is on a par with SC's
