The greater sin for me was that Starfield laid bare all the flaws with every other Bethesda game.
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The pseudo-choice that doesn't really make any difference to the story. You can do every faction's quest line. Making a choice doesn't preclude you making a different one once that quest line is done, nor does it have any effect on those other questlines going forward. Choosing the Freestar Rangers should, if not preclude you from joining the commonwealth, then at least have come up in the conversation when you're trying to convince the Freestar Ambassador to open the archive (for example).
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The inevitable stat building in the same direction because it's simply the easiest way to play the game. You always end up a stealth archer. You always end up a sneak sniper, etc... You can try your best to spec for something else early on, and then quickly realize that it's not really all that much fun.
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The impermanence of being a bad guy. Pay your bounty and suddenly everyone forgets.
In other Bethesda games, the storylines and atmosphere and sidequests were generally enough to forgive this kind of thing. But Starfield was so humdrum that you couldn't help but be annoyed by the same quirks that you forgave in other games.