Frontier/Elite is in a very precarious situation apparently so you would do well to buy them at full price and support the game.
I'm sorry but Elite Dangerous has earned so much money to Frontier Dev. Dozens millions of Euro each years.
After so many years the game create more profits to FDev than the year of release. It's their more profitable game.
And do we got ?
A Vanilla game that was in maintenance mode for many years. (Alright they were Beyond Series year of free development and Fleet Carrier that were nice)
A Space Legs DLC that was not finished and full of bugs.
The game is absolutly not in trouble. Elite Dangerous has its profits and server financed by Cosmetics just alone...
If Odyssey DLC received bad reviews it's only because of FDev fault. See Battlefield 2042 reviews... Release half finished, full of bugs Game/DLC and you are sure to receive bad reviews.
If FDev start to really invest in the game and stop non sense like Limpets as reward for missions, Elite Dangerous Odyssey DLC may be in a situation where it has good reviews like it was the case for No Man's Sky.