To me, the best thing about wrpgs is writing, world building, giving the player options, and consequences so NV appealed to me. I liked that the game world felt connected in terms of consequence, and with at least 15-20 factions in the game world, the game does a wonderful job at making the New Vegas area feel simply vast. All of the checkmarks for why I like wrpgs are in the game, personally.
While Stoney thinks it's mediocre, I think it was the best rpg last generation.
One thing I think that turns a lot of people off with NV is that, at its heart, it has a completely different goal than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 is about survival, and more particularly, surviving the Capitol Wasteland; New Vegas is about rebuilding a destroyed world and civilization. These two differences help make a huge difference in how you even play the two games.
I mean, it's true that Fallout 3 has better exploration, but I think that's pretty much it. New Vegas has a lot more going for it: moral ambiguity, better main plot and story, improvements that make the gameplay better like iron sights, more weapon variety, moddable weapons, different ammo types, the option to go melee, better use of various builds, higher difficulty, more factions and your choices in relation to them impact the game world, more and betters sidequests. It has more reasons to replay due to sheer amount of choices it has to offer so you won't be able to see nearly everything in one play through, it has better writing, multiple endings, companions each come with unique backstories and actually add something to their characters by having actual personalities.
Exploration is all FO3 has over NV. It's pretty much the only thing. It's true that 3 has more options in terms of exploration, but everything else is pretty simplistic like how Bethesda usually does things. Take the morality in 3. Being a bad person in 3 is bombing Megaton. But the main story is about you helping your dad give the wasteland water. By virtue of following your dad, who's trying to be a hero of the wastes, you naturally too become a hero of the wastes, which is a problem because this is an rpg and about making your own choices. So while you have plenty of choice regarding exploring, you have virtually none regarding questing, which is much more important.
That said, Fallout 3 does have stuff like Oasis going for it, but when stacked against each other I think it's pretty clear cut.
Sucks you couldn't get into after 60 hours. It's definitely a game that quires some time to learn to appreciate, but when you do, it's amazing.
