I own The Outer Worlds but I'm yet to play it, so I'll get back to you on that one. Even in the case of passionate devs, you can still have games with lots of issues (see launch day 2077).
In anycase, other friends of mine are saying they're enjoying Starfield quite a lot, so maybe it's just different opinions or something. I'll still play TES VI when it comes out in anycase, so for now we'll just wait.
True, though in that case, it seemed more like CDPR bit off way more than they could chew, at first, combined with the redo of game mechanics, due to a new team lead coming in and wanting a more 'action' oriented game like everything else on the market, rather than the true RPG it was supposed to be. Something CDPR have only recently managed to mostly shirk off, and patch a solid game out of CP2077.
If they are, more power to them, glad they could have fun, where I didn't. Maybe the gunplay and overly long dialogue from NPCs, which you can't skip, and I found boring and tedious to listen to, after a while, appealed to them way more and they had more fun with it and found it engaging, instead, or perhaps they're having a blast with what little exploration aspect exists within the game, or something.
One thing I do know is, this game makes a poor use of procedurally generated content. There is so much more that can be done with that tech, with where it's at now, and Bethesda just phoned it in pretty hard with it. In my view, again, anyway. Your mileage may vary, if/when you eventually play it yourself.