.NET Core feels very much simplified and has a lot of really wonderful Front End templates, specifically JavaScriptServices for their React + Redux, Vue, and Angular starter projects. They feel very much like a Node and React + Redux project but with a C# backend and TypeScript. I've found it to be really enjoyable having a type checker, server side rendering, webpack, and a great deployment story. All out of the box.

You can see an example of something similar here: https://aspnet-core.azurewebsites.net/ and https://github.com/kriasoft/aspnet-starter-kit