What important aspects of the game do you think were improved or regressed over its predecessor? Regardless of 11/11/11 and hardware limitations, here is what I think:


Improvements

• Combat - even though the impact physics (stagger, etc) could have been better. I dislike the walking wall aspect, but it was definitely an improvement over Oblivion;
  
• World aesthetics - Tundra aside (WTF they were thinking), the world in general was far more beautiful than its predecessors. I would argue that this was the aspect that improved the most, along with the dungeon aesthetics;
  
• Dungeon aesthetics - Dungeons are very pleasant to the eyes, it seems undeniable that the dullest draugr tomb is better than the best ayleid ruin (ok, maybe not);
  
• Dragons - They are awesome, though the physics of impact and their attacks could have been improved (a mighty tail sweep knocking everyone around down was a lacking dragon signature feature);
  
• Radiant quests - Could have been better, though;
  
• "Unofficial" side quests - The "quests" that are described by notes and dead bodies. They also appear at a very high frequency. This is one of the factors that draws me to enter in dungeons.

Regressions

• Linear dungeons - the dungeons are too linear. Generally there is only one path to follow, which makes dungeon crawling boring after some time;
  
• Small main cities - An unfulfilled promise, I remember when Bethesda announced that the smallest city of Skyrim would be larger than the Imperial city. I think they got it backward, the largest city of Skyrim is smaller than Bruma. A single imperial quarter has more buildings than any city in Skyrim;
  
• Repetitive taverns and Jarl Longhouses- All taverns and longhouses are created equal in Skyrim, apparently.
  
• Interior design in general - I find that the interior design of houses and buildings is far less creative and far more repetitive than what we found in Oblivion.
  
• "Fewer" NPC's - Maybe there are more NPC's in Skyrim, but there should be areas with more NPC density (like cities).
  
• Lack of city quests - Maybe due to the size, but there are very few quests inside the cities in SKyrim, which were one of the best kind of quests in Oblivion (assassination, NPC following, stealing, escaping). Those quests made me feel more attached to Oblivion cities.

One glaring disappointment, both for Skyrim and Oblivion, was the quality of the quests. They aren't very interesting, and Skyrim had a lot of room for being awesome, quest-wise. I don't think I need to comment on the CIvil War issue.