My 2c:
I share a lot of the same sentiments as IAmRandom31. Basically you started with a "too good to be true" vision and it ended up being more realistic.
However, I'm not sure if I'm ready to quantify game quality by landmass or even number of environments necessarily, like others are willing to do here so comfortably. And even still the amount of time I spent in each environment didn't nearly approach the amount of time I'd like to spend in the retail version exploring, and I still feel like I got a significant amount of satisfaction out of that, and can easily see myself getting 15+ hours out of the story alone, in environments that are made to facilitate post-launch additions and events (how the world of Destiny is supposed to change.. or will that be rescinded too?). On top of that the Crucible is pretty fun, despite momentum shifts being a bit too easy.
I think people are way too quick to judge volume of content using a vertical slice (at the start of the game, most of which was a tutorial no less), that's where I take issue with some of the hyperbole. Thankfully, I didn't go in trying to burn myself out on that content either. I think even if the game didn't come with Old Russia or that one Moon mission I might get my money's worth. The core gameplay is there, and while not perfect, it's really only a few tweaks away. Bungie did a really good job at minimalizing issues that plague loot and FPS genres.