I played it a bit during a “free weekend” a few years back. It felt lifeless and dull. Then I discovered how long it was going to take to get to the next planet/asteroid/whatever the objective was in my ship for the sake of “realism” and I was out.

Dont most of these “steam machine killers” lack the CEC support an ability to wake from controller?

The convenience of that and the tight integration with steam is what makes the SM interesting.