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Game got dinged on reviews a bit when it first hit the store due to some major bugs and an economy that was skewed a little unfair, but devs have been resolving all that, so don't mind the complaints about the economy from the day one reviews.
Comparable Games
So basically this game combines the trucking sim vibes from popular games like Eurotruck with the space trading vibes of games like X2, X3, X4, Evochron Legacy, and maybe a little bit No Man's Sky if we're exclusively talking about trading between stations. The game also includes vehicle maintenance vs the environment gameplay and is very "run based", so in that way it does have some elements that feel comparable to games like Pacific Drive.
Eurotruck + space sim + Pacific Drive = Star Trucker
There Is A Lot To Manage
One mistake you don't want to make when considering this game is assuming it's a casual or cozy type experience. The simulation aspects in this game are kinda complex and diagetic and there are a lot of different plates you need to keep spinning when managing your funds, almost entirely related to maintenance and upkeep of your craft.
Your ship requires fuel for thrusters, power cores for various ship systems, and a few ship systems also require circuit boards. Fuel is burned as you burn your thrusters. Power Cells lose their charge as your ship systems are in use. Circuit boards slowly degrade over time and need to be replaced. Some examples of these ship systems include artificial gravity (needs power cell and circuitry), oxygen (needs power cell), internal cabin climate control (requires circuitry), air filtration (requires air filters), mag locks (needed to hitch cargo and to dock at stations), space suit (requires power and oxygen recharge after use).
The thing is, if you are using all of your systems at all times, you are wasting money, because you might be burning fuel when you don't need to, or wasting power when you don't need to, which means you are wasting money when you don't need to, because you have to pay to replace fuel, power cells, circuitry, and air filters. So in order to save money, you can use the newtonian physics in space to drift long distances (especially with heavy cargo giving you more momentum) and conserve fuel. You can turn off all the lights inside the ship when you don't need them. You can also disable the artificial gravity inside your ship when you don't need it (but be careful that you might damage loose cargo if you don't take precautions). When you are swapping out the circuitry in your systems, you have to remember to cut power at the breakers first or you will blow the breakers on the entire ship, which you then have to act fast to restore.
There are a lot of tiny things to manage, and tiny corners you can cut to save money, and getting used to all of this takes a bit of time and patience as you are learning.
Jobs / Making Money
Once you've got a handle on things, there are different ways to make money.
HAULING different kinds of cargo from A to B is the primary way to make money in early game. As you build up more of an income, there is also a secondary form of trading. Every time you stop at a store to purchase supplies (power cores, filters, etc), you can also purchase miscellaneous others goods that are just for TRADE], such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, foods, etc. You can even trade the supply items themselves (power cores, spare fuel, etc) if you want. There is a fluctuating economy on these, so you can buy low and sell high. Rather than there being a hard limit on capacity for these items, you instead have to watch the weight of your truck, since you are only permitted by SPACE LAW to have a certain weight. You can be randomly called to weigh in at a weigh station at any time, and if you are over weight, you will be fined. So whether you take the fine or dump the cargo, it hurts either way, so mind your weight.
There is also SALVAGE of course, which is the primary use of your space walk equipment. Salvage is eventually one of the best money makers and it can even get you some free maintenance (salvaged power cells or fuel etc). But if you dilly dally too long on some salvage you happened across, you might also get penalized on a late delivery if you are in the middle of a haul.
The game does also have BLACK MARKETS, if you want to be a contraband-hauling criminal trying to pass under the radar of the law, but you will not be getting into any dogfights in this game. You just haul the cargo and try not to go broke, get fined, freeze to death, burn to death, crash into an asteroid, etc.
Story / Maps
The game also has story jobs that you must perform at your leisure, and completing these story jobs unlocks new sectors of the galaxy for you to explore. These new sectors are more challenging and have their own simulation challenges. For example, one of the first sectors you unlock takes you extremely close to a star that is prone to random flares every several minutes. The external environment here is hundreds of degrees normally, but thousands of degrees during flares. During a flare, you need to pull a lever that lowers your ship's protective shielding, which prevents it from being obliterated by the flare , but the shielding also covers all windows, so you're forced to steer your ship via an external camera feed on your dash. The extreme temperatures also mean you need to crank climate control far into the AC / cooling range and probably increase air blowers, which means you are burning more power on climate control in this region. You CAN bake yourself alive inside your ship if you don't do this.
Cockpit
Finally, I appreciate that this game is very diagetic as a sim. A lot of space sim games just put literally every game function on 100 different keyboard hot keys. But in star trucker, you instead have a functional dash covered in monitors and buttons. All these buttons and monitors are functional and convey actual information. So instead of doing everything with hot keys, you use the mouse to literally push the button, flip the switch, pull the handle, twist the knob of whatever control it is on your dash. This gives the game a more tactile and immersive feeling and makes you feel much more that you are in the captain's chair. (Some things are, of course, done with keys, such as steering and breaking, etc).
Devs have noted that HOTAS controls are coming in the future, if that's your bag.
Overall
It's really a pretty interesting game that has the slow grind of driving for money as found in games like Eurotruck, but it's a more challenging vehicle to drive and there are many more numbers to watch, so if you sorta like things like Eurotruck but find them just a little too sleepy and wish there was a little more tension and management involved, then Star Trucker might work for you!
It's one of those games where you need to be willing to suck a little and put up with a little frustration at the start while you get comfortable with the systems and learn about what problems your ship might have and what the solutions are, not to mention getting a feel for the economy and how to make good decisions in that economy. But once you get there, I think it's one of the more interesting sims in the job sim / space sim category and the only game that blends the genres in this specific way.