I'm slightly disappointed by this Alpha. It definitely still needs a lot of balancing
Allow a longtime MMO'er some perspective.
The alpha caps your level at level 8 and without knowing exactly what the level cap is for the initial game (I'm guessing lv 50 or 60), level 8 is really low level. For most successful MMOs (EverQuest, World of Warcraft etc) the average player will typically whiz through the early levels where it's really a tutorial for learning the game mechanics - you don't even need to understand, adopt and employ tactics in most cases, it's a learning experience designed to be progressed quickly by experienced gamers and be a training experience for those new to MMO mechanics. Good loot drops at low level will be very rare because a) the vast majority of players will progress quickly where a 'good' weapon at level 8 will be discarded by an average weapon drop at level 10.
This is the risk/loot/reward curve of MMOs. I wouldn't expect to see more interesting loot until at least the half-way point through the levels (i.e. level 25 if the level cap is 50, level 30 if the level cap is 60). And being half way through the levels really means you are probably less than 10% in terms of real progress because the levels will draw out as your progress.
You may have noticed that a lot of gear had abilities that you needed to unlock with experience (kills) as you used it. This will make more sense in latter levels where you'll be working through one level for several hours - whatever their progression curve is. I found a few items with I got at level 6 with abilities that I never unlocked because I found something better at level 7 or level 8.
Expending a lot of effort on loot that many will have for an hour (or less) probably isn't where Bungie have expended their effort and it's like every MMO I've played.
The auto aim is ridiculous. The worst I've seem in a game in years. There needs to be an option to turn it of.
I didn't notice auto-aim at all. Is there a setting?
Enemies respawn way too fast. You can't even explore an area without them spawning back within a minute.
I think the spawn rate in the alpha is already balanced for a fully populated server, not a sparsely populated alpha. That said, I didn't have any problems. Even when I was the only player, I was never overwhelmed by respawns.
You need to up your game, man
The missions in free roam get old fast. Go there, or kill that, or collect this, it's not very imaginative. Doing Strikes or story missions seems far more interesting.
I think the free roam (beacon) missions are to assist in grinding through levels. I think this will be more of an interesting diversion at higher levels. I never felt I had to grind through the alpha because there was enemies everywhere and killing them was a) fun and b) made you level crazy fast anyway. But to iterate my first point, the alpha covers the low levels. You can't even really get a feel for the diversity of the classes because so few skills are unlocked by level 8.
And why would I want be sent to the other side of the map if I just want explore the area I'm in?
I think it's utterly random. If you want to explore, you can. For people who need a direction/goal, the beacon missions give that plus a bonus bit of experience in addition to what you net killing baddies.
Like others, as soon as I realised the beacon missions were just a limited randomised set of missions, I stopped doing them and just explored. There was a ton of environment that none of the missions steered you towards and eventually led to high level (level ??) enemies that it was difficult to skirt around.