Noctis was an amazing experience. It had no right being as immersive as it was. If you liked the idea of NMS, give it a go; it nails the alone-on-the-frontier mood a lot better.
It sounds bad but indeed, early NMS did feel kind of meaningless, which as you said had a certain poetic quality.
Melancholic curiosity, or loneley exploration, are two things I am trying to capture in games I make. There is a game called Infra that I highly recommend if you enjoy that mood, and city infrastructure.