Why would anyone buy this game over Terraria, Minecraft, or any other survival sandbox games? I ask this because I have bought and played the game and liked it, but I don't know what makes it worth time.

Well, it has a lot of artists, so you don't have to worry about running out of decor for your base, even if progression was completely screwed up by the change to the Protectorate?

It's mostly more of the same, with a different flavor. Which might be just what you want or not, depending.

I find the starbound universe quite lively compared to terraria or minecraft; there's this space station with a bunch of NPCs and a few shops, and there are prebuilt "story missions" as well as puzzles. Planets have settlements (although that gets old quick; after you've seen a few, you've pretty much seen it all).

Oh, you also get a space ship, which you can "upgrade" (expand). Which isn't as cool as it might sound.