First Impression: Speechless, with jaw hanging open. (Admittedly, part of that was due to the fact that I didn't think Skyrim would run at all on my 3-year-old laptop, so I was a bit shocked by my initial, trouble-free launch, and then that I was able to tweak some settings to run it at 1080p with an acceptable fps.)

Second Impression: Wow.

Assessment after about 40 hours of gameplay: There was a lot of hype. For me, this game lives up to it -- and then goes the extra mile. I've seen a few minor glitches so far (insubstantial weapons and armor pieces floating in midair, animals walking around underwater, and rarely, slightly detached landscape textures), and I have a few gripes about control issues, like not being able to ride a horse in 1st person, but those things don't detract from the overwhelming awesomeness of the rest.

Nice job Bethesda! "You are Legendary!"

I love the graphics of this game, but I hate that they fall apart once you get close. A first for a Bethesda game, I've run into zero bugs, and only one crash so far in my 10+ hours of play.

My expectations were moderate at first and then kept growing the more we saw. Skyrim has far exceeded my hopes for it every day as I make my way through the world. I can imagine so many games I'd like them to make but I wish it didn't take years to make them. I think about a Star Trek type game visiting different planets and space stations, etc., and I know they could make it all look so incredible and it would be fun. Sorry drifted off there...I'm loving Skyrim.

I've had a couple of CTDs, but I'm not sure it was the game that caused them. I think it might have been Steam downloading and installing updates.

I and others like me were accused of being too optimistic or 'hyped' about Skyrim. I liked almost all of the design decisions we heard about in the build up and confidently stated that (at least for me) Skyrim would be the best Elder Scrolls game yet. Some on the forums even went so far as to predict that the 'overly' optimistic people would be the first to come here complaining that it didn't live up to our expectations. And, truthfully, it hasn't

... it's blown them out of the [censored] water! I love everything about it. Everything. It's a masterpiece. It may turn out to be my favourite game of all time, and I've played a lot of games these past 25ish years.

So yeah, I agree.