Kenshi

First time starting. Set off in a random direction, got chased by a bunch of bandits and beaten up. Died after 3 ingame hours.
Second start, wandered around a town, got into a bar fight, died. survival time 2 ingame hours.
Third start, picked a different starting location in the desert got sniped by a noble. Survival time 15 minutes ingame time.
Fourth start, beaten up by some starving beggars, wake up again badly wounded to limp to a town for help, got eaten by beak things. Survival time 1 day 2 and a half hours. Improvement!
Almost 5000 played hours later, I've destroyed factions and nations, made fortunes as a traveling trader, stole from the rich (and the poor) as a lone ninja, travelled as a nomad, built my own city, been a slave and a slave trader, a bounty hunter, a ronin, a farmer, a fisherman. I've cleared ancient ruins and salvaged old tech, survived camping in the wilderness and killed a leviathan in a duel. I've lived many lives, died many deaths to get there...It's been a journey.
10/10 would die many deaths again.

My Story in Kenshi so far.
I made a female starter character. Started in the Hub and just went out into the desert.
Met my first Starving Bandits and got knocked out. They took my food.
Found a bar to restock my supplies and discovered some ore nearby. Mined for starter money, while narrowly avoiding more bandits.
Took my meagre earnings to built myself a base, but got a visit from a patrol of the Holy Nation. They reported me to their inquisition and returned with reinforcements to burn me for being a woman.
But I knew the area by now and baited Black Dragon Ninjas into their raid. The inqusition won, but suffered heavy losses and had to retreat, which left me in a field of wounded and dead. I took their equipment as loot while the crippled survivors got eaten by scavenging Bonedogs.
I vowed to take my revenge on the Holy Nation and destroy them without leveling up other troops, just with this one character.
So I started training, beat up Dust Bandits and explored more of the world. My travels yielded better loot and better tech, my outpost was growing, and then I found a rare crossbow.
In a dessicated world of unarmored targets, speed, range and a copious amounts of bleed inflicting bolts are king. I began to utterly destroy bandits with this crossbow. Improved my stats and hunted down bigger bountys to measure the strength of my character.
After some time, I found myself in the Ashlands, an even more desolate lategame area. In the ruins of a fallen civilisation, I stumbled upon a powerful "skeleton" (think mad max samurai terminator). Kiting him to hell and back, I somehow managed to knock him out... and took him back home with me.
Now I'm very much tempted to return his monstrous weapon to him and throw him in the capital of the Holy Nation, so he can nuke their cities.
So yeah… I am about to start a war.
10/10 This game is amazing.

I woke up in a desert missing an arm, being chased by a giant beetle-looking monster. I tried to run to the nearest town but was assaulted and robbed by local bandits, then enslaved and forced to mine iron for the nobility. After nearly a month of captivity I slipped my shackles and escaped into the night. A bounty was declared on my head so I could not enter the towns in the region, so I escaped north, where I was promptly eaten alive by some sort of giraffe dinosaur.

10/10 experience.

In just 22 hours, this has been my experience:

Started with 1000c at the Hub, a run-down criminal dump with only a working bar. I bought a little food and got to mining. I went through the "get beat down, toughen up, build skills, and acquire gear" grind with the character I forgot to rename before hitting confirm in the editor, "Feck."

Feck was a loner for a long time. Built a shack, a storm house, stone quarry, stone processing, and a few other production facilities by himself. After awhile I found an NPC who wanted to be free of his master and I paid his contract. Voth joined me and we built a walled camp worth being proud of. We faced countless bandits and wildlife along the way, but we did it.

No rest for the wicked, though. We set to making steel and crafting weapons, and probably managed 15 swords and had 8 in the chest to sell when 20 black dragon ninjas showed up to beat us bloody and toss us out of our camp. Feck and Voth recovered and launched a two-man counter attack after some rest, but were beaten again. We recruited mercs and the lot of us managed to whittle their numbers, but now there's "hungry bandits" trying to edge in and our heroes were ousted again.

I have spent the last several hours recruiting a handful of new characters to train and arm as elite warriors. Feck and Voth are hardened killers who outmatch any 2 black dragon ninjas. I don't care if we can recover our base, as long as we can make them regret taking what we worked for, I don't care if it burns.

So yeah, you could say I'm deeply invested.

This is one of the games that has small but devoted fanbase. Its like dwarf fortress, rimworld, factorio, project zomboid and other indie games with overwhelmingly positive reviews.
So Kenshi....you create an ugly ass dude and are put in ugly ass world (the game uses ugly ass engine from early 2000s).
You get beaten by literally everyone and have no idea what to do and how to play.
Then you keep trying, dozens of hours pass and then you are the greatest force in the ugly ass world who can beat anyone, anywhere.
Its 10/10

Started as a wanderer... no idea what I'm doing...
wandered to next city, met a woman... she protecc, she attac but most importantly she revive...
we continue our journey... find out how to mine copper
mine copper
sell copper
earn enough to get a few more companions...
discover swamps...
stuck in swamps...
somehow survived swamps...
met some cannibals
killed cannibals
met some random guys
beat them and sold them into slavery
guess this is my live now.
become enslaved...
rest of group free me
hate slavers...
but I discovered you can smuggle drugs from the swamps...
We go in and out of the swamp...
end up being a millionaire because of smuggling drugs...
btw, still don't know what I'm doing...

Be prepared to die, a lot. Once you get past the high learning curve its a really rewarding experience. Lots of freedom to play how you want. a brutal game that finds interesting ways to kill you, and your friends, and your dog. If you can learn to survive long enough you can become World changing character. I started as a guy with a dog, in my travels id get beaten up, my dog too. So we got some party members, got stronger, one day a group of Holy Nation cultists (douches) attacked us for having a woman in our group with a weapon. they killed most of my party, they killed my dog. John Wick i am not. but i wanted revenge. I fled holy nation lands, began to build an army made allies with other factions, began hunting holy nation patrols for fun. eventually stood toe to toe with mr high and mighty himself. As soon as he dropped i scooped him up and ran him to the deadlands. dropped him in a pit of acid and stood by to make sure he died. For my dog, Mr. Scruffy.