you can play the quests and experience the lore just fine, for free
lots of fan service in the game, for example plenty of series actors doing voices.
Con:
The game is on life support, and extremely dated. Most systems and mechanics have been gutted and streamlined so much, all you can do is get a feeling for how fun the game must have been in its prime
everything end level is extremely monetized, virtually all good ships and equipment require real money. Not to mention for a decent build you will need to buy multiple ships to obtain their abilities.
constant fomo: at virtually any point in time some fomo event is up trying to entice you to log in daily or spend spend spend. And all those monthly events feed into an even bigger fomo event that goes on all year. Also fomo deals on the real money shop that bring the absurd prices into almost reasonable ranges. A daily dilitihium refining cap (the only actually useful currency not 100% tied to real money)
and if that’s not enough, gambling on everything else. All events come with loot boxes, requiring real money keys. Item upgrades, stat reforging, everything is randomized. And requires real money or your very limited dilitihium.
Ultimately it’s fun to play through all the storylines and explore the world a bit, but unless you are willing to spend big you can’t get the good stuff. Also there is no end game except racing the dps meter against other whales.