Most people who dislike this game only have a very surface level appreciation of science fiction.
If the setting doesn't contain an abundance of cyborgs, aliens (and really, they mean sex toys), or other entry level sci fi tropes, they're not interested.

The Starborn are often ridiculed for their name, but really, what the main quest did was brilliant, it takes you, a human being, through a sequence of events that leads you into becoming the same godlike beings whose motivations were alien to you when you first encountered them.
Before you realize it, you are as alien to humanity as the Starborn were to you.
Its not on the levels of the great sci-fi novels (and I doubt video games will ever reach those heights), but its pretty clever.

Normalfag sci-fi "fans" will never get this, for them, science fiction is just an avenue for aesthetics, but its so much more than that.