Yes. TL;DR at bottom.

For the sake of transparency, I always liked the game, but that's because I played it as a chill exploration game while my baby was napping. I never needed more during that time of fatherhood.

Since then they have massively expanded the game beyond what was ever hyped. Okay, still no giant desert snake, but other than that.

They added base building (which they said wouldn't happen), multiplayer is pretty easy to do (was supposed to be hard to find people), they added a plot that tied into an ARG (which was to build hype around said update).

Yes, Sean lied. But more over, I think Sony made him lie. Their office flooded during development and they lost a lot of data. I think Sony told them to hide the extent of the setback and keep going like everything was fine. Then they ran out of money and time and it was a case of "release now, or never release at all and close the studio."

Since then they have done...3 I think? Major "DLC" updates. All of them free. This next major update called No Man's Sky Beyond is also free update and will be multiple parts. The first is called No Man's Sky Online and we can only assume they are expanding the multiplayer further.

The VR announcement is part of Beyond.

tl;dr they could have pulled an EA and Mass Effect Andromeda, but they didn't. They've been releasing major expansions to the game taking it beyond what was hyped and all expansions are free.