Quoting: TheSHEEEPTried getting into Ark with my GF. Created a private server just for the two of us.
We did like the basic game (I mean, training and growing cute dinosaurs and riding on them, who wouldn't?!), but had to stop after a few sessions as it just became all too obvious that the game was not at all meant to be playable by just two people. At least not if those two people cannot spend more than an hour or two per day on it.
There is just waaaaaaayyyyy too much grind, plants take forever to grow, eggs forever to hatch, you have to eat seven whole animals a day just in order not to starve, etc. - and meanwhile even animals in the starting area kill you in like two bites. And you are constantly flinging shit around (seriously, we named one dinosaur "Gustav the pooper", the boy wouldn't stop shitting). It's altogether pretty absurd.

I know you can tweak all those values in the server manager, and I did to an extent. But when it comes to games, I'm definitely demanding a "dive in and enjoy" experience. The mere fact that with default settings I had to basically run to a berry bush every minute or kill an animal 2-3 times a day in the game in order not to starve was just too ridiculous and broke the game for me.

That was like a year ago. I doubt very much has changed since then.

Empyrion, a much better game IMO - even if still rather rough around the edges - allows you to achieve something much quicker with fewer people and is still very much a survival game where you have to be careful.
Oh, and you need to eat maybe two pieces of bread and a salami per day.