I've heard this complaint before about Dungeons being repetitive, and I find it the most baseless criticism towards the game. I can agree that puzzles are repetitive, but the dungeon design is always different. Like, impressively so. Yes, there are a lot of Barrows, but at least there's a logical reason for them being there. They are Nordic Burial Chambers. Skyrim is populated by Nords. And even then, each Barrow's layout is different, often mixing in templates of other dungeons, such as Caves, Snow Caves, Ice Caves, Mines, and Forts. I mean think about the word "Dungeon", and generally every kind of traditional dungeon is found in Skyrim, and even then there's variation. See in Oblivion they were just obscenely lazy, but in Skyrim, you can walk into a Glacier, and what appear to be a cave opens up to a Ceiling-less chamber full of trees with a watchtower coming out of the center. See it's all in how Bethesda cross-uses Templates and material found in the game. Where as in Oblivion, they used flat templates for sewers, forts, Aeylid Ruins, and caves. Skyrim combines all their dungeon templates in unique ways, while adding stuff foun in the overworld to create a unique dungeon everytime.

And I didn't even touch on Dwemer Dungeons, each one I find to be completely spectacular.

Well there was only like five dwemer ruins in the game but they all lead to the most spectaculer place in the game.

I agree.. a bit. There can be some repetition even in Skyrim dungeons, but they are a vast improvement over Oblivion. As for Dwemer ruins.. personally I can't stand them. As soon as I start enjoying it.. then it gets to be too dragged out for me. Perhaps it's my claustrophobia(sp) kicking in.

I don't think the dungeons are that big of an improvement over Oblivion. Sure they look better and at least have a back story but they get repetivite at times and you still don't get rewarded for completeing a dungeon. I like random but I also would like something that would make it worth exploring the dungeon like the Helm of Yngol, which is one of the few rewards that you can get that isn't based off of random.

Someone always has a probelm with everything but Persoanlly I'm pretty satisfied. Some are small some are large. Designs vary and I am often surprized.

There's actually 17, not including whatever Dawnguard added which I know is at least one. That's only 5 less than Morrowind.

They're much more graphically detailed for sure. My biggest issue with Skyrim dungeons is how incredibly linear they are. The vast majority of the dungeons in game are essentially winding corridors, with no wings or sub levels you can go off and explore.

The lack of interesting hand placed treasure is also a disappointment. One that Oblivion made as well though.

Maybe I just operate on a different level than everyone else, but y primary reward I find for going into dungeons is in game experience, not treasure, because if I want something Godly I'll make it and if I want money I'll steal it.

When you have ~100 dungeons (don't know the exact number), you're going to get repetitiveness. I thought the design was a huge step up from Oblivion. My problem mainly lies with all of the randomized loot. They did improve on this a little bit, as some areas had unique items, but the game definitely needed more. Going through a dungeon to find yet another "X Sword of Flame" is a real letdown.

I'm largely satisfied with the Skyrim dungeon design. There are definitely a few areas that make me stop and think about how to complete them, and generally I think the traps/dangers inside of them are better done than in Oblivion. I do wish there was more hand-placed loot though.

I never quite understood the 'backstory' part. I've heard it said that each dungeon has its own backstory, as if there was a paragraph of material somewhere unique to that dungeon, but I've really never seen that. I mean, obviously a barrow is a place where dead Nords were buried and now they rise up as Draugr. Obviously a cave with a bunch of wolf heads on spikes out front is a Silver Hand hideout, but that's no different than in previous games. Grant you, some dungeons do have a backstory (like there's a barrow near, I think, Ivarstead that is supposedly haunted by a ghost that keeps adventurers away but the 'ghost' is really a mage using spooky effects to keep people from bothering him), and that's neat but dungeons like that are definitely in the minority.

Do anything long enough and it will get repetitive, just this morning my nephew wanted help in a dungeon in Oblivion (can't remember it's name) but it only took 2 seconds for me to remember it and how it played out.

Often the backstories aren't written down for you to sit there and read. They're a bit more hidden. For example, Frostflow Lighthouse (I think that's the one).

my complain about the dungeons is not that they are repetitive in design, i found amazing that every dungeon is diferent and has a "story" to it that you can cleary see by their design and things found in it,
my real complain it that they are linear, almost ALL the other doors/paths in dungeons/barrows are colapsed and we only have one way to go most of the times, would be amazing to
get lost for hours in the biggest dungeons like in arena/daggerfall, but notthing is perfect right?