I bought this game several years ago and purchased the X4 Foundations while on sale back around Christmas. Sadly I played only several minutes of Elite Dangerous (ED). Getting ready to take the plunge into ED or X4.
X4 is aight, but eventually it becomes just a management sim. No reason to leave the station.
ED is extremely deep and really hard to get into. Needs a bunch of 3rd party sites to make meaningful progress.
Both have their own quirks. I will say the community in ED is awesome