Uninspired
Linear play- The game artificially limits you by limiting travel depending on your hyperspace jump distance. When you pull up the map, you see the galaxy divided neatly into several sectors. My heart started to sink when I realized I was literally making a neat circle since I could only move to the next sector after doing blah blah blah missions and a new jump upgrade was available.
Repetitive environments- Alot more work needed to be put in some original areas. Everytime you move into a new sector it feels the same except there's a new race (which is some cookie-cutter race you've seen in some previous game/TV show/movie) and now you get to improve all your equipement from laser 1-2-3-4-etc. Very poor story- A space sim is not Doom. It needs at least a decent story, and the main plot line in this game is terrible. Like other people have already commented, cliche to say the least.
Uninspired combat- this type of game doesn't need to be realistic. But it does need some type of engaging system where some actual skill is involved. For example in Wing Commander you had to use different tactics depending on the ships you faced. Some had turrets or weapon outloads requiring you to approach from the sides/top/bottom instead of rear. There were plenty of capitial ships. In DS I combat feels all the same. The only difference is when you move to a new sector the enemies hit much harder with the same weapons requiring you to regrind for the same weapons except more powerful. Bottom line, I would recommend you trying to get the other games i mentioned, and I would toss in Freespace 2. All these games are older than DS I, but you will instantly notice the difference.