there's actually been a great deal of updates, it's just many of them have dealt with the back-end of things. because of that many people who expect constant content updates claim it's dead. the truth is that the devs have been fixing bugs and laying ground work for future content, in addition to putting out new content. now the content added may seem smaller than expected, but there really is more to it than meets the eye. for example... the recent hearth and home update. on the surface, it added a lot of new building pieces. & that necessarily came with a new mob and drops. what many people didn't seem to notice is that in creating the spawn point for that new mob an entirely new fluid mechanic was also introduced... something that i am absolutely certain will play a huge role in coming biomes.

here's the thing though. imho, the game is damn near a masterpiece as it is.

the devs have a vision of both of what they want to make, and how they want to make it. if you can accept that and be patient about content, you'll probably love it.