I have nearly 1,100 hours on it. It sometimes goes on sale where it drops to $20 or less (without DLCs), but I got it for $15 during a sale when it was still in early access.
If you're not on console, I highly suggest playing modded servers with boosted rates for taming, harvesting, etc. That removes so much of the grind and makes the game immensely more enjoyable, especially if you're on a limited schedule and don't have at least a few hours to spare every day. If you're on console, you won't have mods but will still be able to play on servers with boosted rates.
Some of the bigger mods like Primal Fear and Ark Eternal are so content-rich that they're literally like free DLC. Others like Awesome Teleporters, Death Recovery, and S+ remove the grindiest, most tedious aspects of the game.
Feel free to PM if you'd like any tips on the game or mods in general! I almost gave up when I first got the game and had to spend nearly 45 minutes feeding a baby dino, but I later realized my mistake was playing on an unmodded server with vanilla rates. The game became completely different (and much better!) when I fixed that.