This explains why Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launched in such a sad state.

• Same crappy launcher as the previous game (MSFS 2020) which is counted toward Steam play hours while you download the rest of the game. Thankfully, Valve sees this nonsense for what it is, and is giving out refunds regardless of play hours.
• Unskipable tutorials, and no option to just jump straight into flying in the "Free Flight" mode (you have to do a walkaround of your aircraft every single time before starting off, which while accurate to IRL, still needs a bypass option in a video game)
• the game (singleplayer with a completely optional multiplayer component) is entirely online only to the point where the in-game textures themselves are totally beholden to a fast and reliable internet connection… which means jackshit when the server side of this equation was underestimated by at least an order of magnitude (the devs apparently tested for 2 million players, but not in a way that would have pushed the servers in any real fashion, ie flying across the in-game world).
• Relating to above, they also didn't allow for any preloading of the game, and unlike the previous entry, launched the game worldwide all at once.
• Terrain in many places is bugged in extremely obvious ways (want to fly in middle of nowhere Nebraska? Enjoy the possibility of seeing a 5000 ft+ cliff jutting out of the terrain.)
• Numerous simulation aspects of flying an airplane just straight up don't work (ATC is a common one, others have reported lights, flaps, landing gear, and so on either bugged or not working with certain aircraft, and flight models are completely off in certain aircraft as well)

It's not all bad, though. It's the first MSFS game to fully utilize more than 4 threads on a CPU (this is a good example of damning with faint praise if I've ever seen one).