I had fun with NV, jsut after I did everything I ran out of things to do.

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But even so I think "everything" for New Vegas is bigger than "everything" for Skyrim. New Vegas offers more quests (hand-made ones) and the RPG elements mean each character feels different, so there IS incentive to replay the game, support a different army and focus on different perks and unique weapons.

And hell one could even make the argument that "everything" in FO3 is bigger than "everything" in Skyrim.


New Vegas did an excellent job in story writing, RPG elements, character balance (YES, you do want character balance, even for single player RPGs. It extends replay value) and NPC depth/interaction, particularly with the companions.
FO3 did an excellent job with exploration, providing action and combat, and making the world feel dynamic.

While both of those provide very strong tools and exceed at what they're good at, Skyrim seems to fall flat in all-of-the-above. Not to say that Skyrim is particularly bad at all of those, but that it seems to not be as good at any of those as FO3 and New Vegas were, which is disappointing.
Maybe Dawnguard will improve on this. I mean hell, it looks like we at least get to make choices with consequences there.

I had fun with NV, jsut after I did everything I ran out of things to do.

1. Extremely short, shallow factions. Not near enough of them. Not near enough variety in factions. Continued the Oblivion trend of factions being obsessive organizations i.e. Oblivion Fighter's Guild: 'We hate the Blackwood Company' to Skyrim Companions: 'We hate the Silverhand'. Not enough of the factions actually doing what their charter says they should do... Why don't the companions do more mercenary work? Maybe you need to decide if you'll take contracts from Imperials, or Stormcloaks, or both and then that opens up further options. Why don't you have any opposition or rival to moving up in the ranks? Why do you become privy to the Companion's darkest, most abominable secret after knowing them for two hours?

2. No Spellmaking...crappy, limited magic compared to previous installments

3. No attributes/stats/the revamped character creation in general. Races don't have as many meaningful differences. Less skills, less choices in how I begin my character.

4. Weak writing and quest design for a large amount of the game. There are some gems (Ill-met by Moonlight, the murder mystery in Morthal, the murderer in Windhelm), but overwhelmingly they've relied too much on the unsatisfying 'Radiant Quest'/'Radiant Story' stuff.

5. In general there's just not as much interesting stuff to do. I feel that each game is 'Do the Main Quest', 'Do the 1-2 factions applicable to your character, or else branch out and, absurdly, become the Harbinger, Archmage, Listener, Nightingale, and Mega-Bard all at once, and then scavenge for quests around the world. There just needs to be more organizations, more lengthy quest-lines.

6. I'll throw an extra one in. I hate the pacing of this game: You are being executed for the crime of being within 1 mile of Ulfric Stor- OH MY GOD A DRAGON! OH MY GOD TELL THE JARL! OH MY GOD HELP US KILL THE DRAGON! OH MY GOD GREYBEARDS SUMMON YOU THROUGH VOICE IN SKY. Take it easy. I don't want to rush off and have to feel like the world is waiting on me to save it. In Morrowind I get off the boat, get directed to Caius Cosades, he tells me I'm a noob and hands me a few gold to get some training and do other things until I'm pro enough to go talk to Hasphat Antabolis about a certain puzzle box. Too much hand-holding, and making the player feel like Mr. Special right from the get-go.