Space without aliens

Is it just boring? I like the image of a rugged outskirt rocks across the galaxy or even planets with life that haven’t reached sentience. A galaxy of cowboys and pirates, or wars, showing that no matter how advanced they got, human’s never really changed.

Can an entertaining world be built out of this idea? Or maybe there were other species, but the natural flow of time has pushed them aside (allowing for large and advanced ruins) and humans are just the next species in line, destined to do the same. Is there any ground to do something like this, or would it not go over well?