Generally skip the quests labeled "Task:" if you want to avoid grindy, inconsequential bullshit but do keep a lookout for some of them as they can sometimes involve good stories involving the main characters of the game besides your immediate crew.
Prepare to be shocked at the technical issues the game has. Mass Effect 1 had a similar situation but the baseline presentation was solid because they nailed down cinematics and digital acting in an otherwise buggy and janky game. Andromeda has hokey writing and sometimes abysmal facial animations, it's actually shocking. But on the flipside there's technical feats in the game world and the graphical presentation that keeps me from calling it an unimpressive game. You can see the shimmers of a truly marvelous next-gen title in this game that goes beyond what BioWare usually does in my opinion, and you can unfortunately also tell that much of that was scaled down and left unfinished. This alone makes the game super interesting to me on a post-mortem level though.
I would avoid playing on above-normal difficulty because it drags out the combat with more bullet-spongy enemies. It's a bad solution to increasing difficulty and the load times upon death will only certainly frustrate more than necessary. Also, as others have said, if you're on pc, check out the Nexusmods site for things. There's bugfixes and QoL mods that can really improve the experience.
If you start hating the open-world stuff remember that the mainquest is always just waiting for you to finish it, and from start to finish it contains beats with more polished, cinematic stuff than the remainder of the game and the intro mission and final mission are easily the game's best moments.
