ARK: Survival Evolved is on and off sale all year. I'm nearing 500 hours on it since I've gotten it. It's pre-release as well so it's buggy for what it is but has so many features rolling out roughly twice a month. The dev team crowd sources mods too, so the community base is pretty forthcoming with content as well. Open-world, semi-sandbox, with a Jurassic Park type of survival. The game is as technical as you'd like it to be. Well shit, now that I'm typing this comment, is there a Hubski group?
I've been running it fairly well on a mac that's a bit dated. There's a formula for getting the launch settings and in-game settings tweaked just right as well. With regard to who you play with, just as with MC, all you have to do is find the right server (usually smaller ones, avoid public like the plague). I tend to find keepers on Reddit.
I refrained from putting that in the description for some reason, but that's the general consensus. In truth, it's taken over my minecraft slot in terms of gaming. My main minecraft server got shut down due to the crackdown on EULA (mainly towny servers). I was able to convince a fraction of the community to start ARK. Having one survival/crafting game at a time seems to be the way to go too... none of us have touched minecraft since. Less so a missed opportunity - if anything, it'll be way better if/when you pick it up.It's Minecraft with dinosaurs that you can tame and ride!