1. The core gameplay leans heavily towards "sim". You have a high degree of control over many aspects of your ship, including power diversion, landing gear, cool running, headlights, flight assist controls, etc. The flight model is quite nuanced and many ships feel unique and powerful in their own way - even more so after engineering them.
It doesn't feel janky at all - in fact everything feels very consistent and bug-free for the most part.
2. Core loop can be anything you choose, but at the very beginning (after tutorials and such) it might be simply: select mission, take off, warp to target system, head to mission target, complete mission. There are many variations on this loop, and while missions help with structure and acquisition early on, you can ignore them completely and just follow your nose; see where each new discovery takes you.
3. I've been playing since the PS4 launch, and the game has seen the addition of Thargoids (hostile alien race), Megaships (essentially player-owned mobile outposts), and several new pilot-able ships to name a few things. Odyssey is expected early next year, which will add first-person on-foot gameplay.
4. No Man's Sky - more arcadey ship controls with survival gameplay on procedurally generated worlds. Has a more focused story path. Very different tone and vibrant colour palette. It actually complements Elite very nicely.
Star Citizen - Haven't played this, but it seems like it incorporates a more "dense" approach. You can only land on a few crafted worlds, but there are many systems at play with one another. It can make for some fascinating conceptual content, but is very buggy as a result.
www.epicgames.com
