No starterbox is ever ‘complete’ on its own.
As such they always have been and always will be a way to get you spend more. That’s not to say that some starter boxes are better than others as they do deliver a more complete experience out of the box.

The big problem is that there is no way to buy into HH without buying that big box at the moment.
And even when they release the rulebooks … the total cost of what you’d have to buy would be more than what that ‘starter box’ has in content.

Yes … there are cheaper hobbies out there, but they don’t let you play in the same setting or the same models.

If you want those beaky marines then you’ve got to buy any of the boxes that GW makes.
You may get similar minis on alternate platforms, but wether or not you want to depends on how ‘accurate’ you want your forces to be.

As such you need to sacrifice something if you want to play HH but don’t want to spend the money on GW products.

Part of the reason why these starter sets are so impossible to compare is that you’re never comparing apples to apples.
At best it is apples to oranges … but sometimes you’re comparing apples to trees.

This is the big problem with de facto monopolies within our hobby.
Historicals have an advantage because unless the manufacturer picks a unique scale/style they have to compete on price/quality.
Any fictional setting automatically gets the vendor lock-in advantage, unless they specify the setting to be miniature agnostic which creates its own problems as people tend to be attracted by new shiny instead of mechanics. And even good mechanics can’t help a game if everyone prefers to play the game with the bigger community despite all of its flaws …

So yeah … it’s all about how much you are willing to sacrifice for your hobby.
And you will have to if you don’t have the resources to do so.