Stellaris taught me of love-hate relationship.

It is incredibly addicting due to near infinite replayability.
But most of the things that grant it its replayability are hidden behind tens of DLC's.
Though because of it, the game is still being maintained and improved upon to this day.
But I have never played multiplayer ever since I had been consistently wiped off from the map of the galaxy in 30 years or less, in a game supposed to last for 200 or more.
The singleplayer is relaxing to play after that. Well, it is relaxing in general, honestly.
So long as you get ahold of the in-game interface that might take you for an hour or two to get acquainted with.
You can play pretty much as anyone, the choices for empires are limitless.
Until you notice that the more populated galaxy becomes, the slower the game performs. Your only solution is the Great Purge. At this point I feel it's a deliberate design choice to force players plunge the galaxy into the all-out war with everyone for performance increase.
The community is similar to the game itself. It is always in turmoil, always split. Corvettes vs Battleships fans, Roleplayers vs Tryhards, Psions vs Synths.
But said community is also bonded by the game. First playthrough, everyone is mesmerised by it. Several playthroughs later, everyone gives up on ever trusting another xeno and turns to the path of the ruthless, the hateful. Several more, and everyone gets tired by hate and turns cold. The kind of cold that when they see uneven amount of planets in the system, it bothers them enough to destroy one with the colossus and not bat an eye if billions die because of it. The boredom from always going into the same genocidal loop makes them eager to search for new solutions. They try out new builds, new mods, new styles of gameplay. They become as curious in rediscovering the game from the different angle as they were in the start when they first installed it. And then...

The cycle continues. Forever and always.
What was, will be. What will be, was.