Just because a game is bland doesn't denounce the fact that at times, the combat system can be engaging.

The story is bland, the quests are bland, the loot is bland, the writing is bland; the combat is enough to hold my attention until I head back over to the Capital Wasteland or New Austin.

This is not a case of shooters vs. RPGs. It's a case of depth, intrigue and the likenesses thereof.

I personally think if you believe that Skyrim is bland, you're blind or have zero comprehension of the word.

It could be better, but to say that the "Combat" is engaging, and why you remain with the game is just telling of how little you understand your own opinion. There's countless games with better melee combat than Skyrim, so it's obviously something else. That's not to excuse lackluster writing and a still punishing lack of human involvement on things like enemy generation and item creation(loot) but still, the world engages in the player in a way that few games outside of BGS do. It's just a pity most of the cool things to see in this game are tied to stupid quests.

I enjoyed exploring in both games (Fallout 3 and Skyrim). I don't really see a difference in that area.

It's also very hard to compare two games that are set up so drastically different in how you get experience, level up, etc. Fallout 3 had perks and the "SPECIAL" setup, so you could go a number of different ways. While Skyrim has the "skill tree", the only other specialization is your race, and really most of those don't add up to that much, or you don't even need to use them.

As for weapons, heck, with just an initial 2-3 hour investment, you can already craft a weapon that can kill in 1 hit, so "finding" special weapons doesn't mean a thing. In Fallout 3, to get that "special" weapon took a very daring run, or a TON of collecting. But when you got it, it CLEARLY was better than a "normal" weapon you could find (or superior in the class of weapon it belonged to).

Weapons and Armor just come off unbalanced in Skyrim due to the Crafting and Enchanting abilities. Once you have that going for you, there's no need to find weapons or armor at all, unless you fancy yourself running around as an Imperial spy or something.

I think what you've described here can easier be described as people simply "grasping at straws." People TRYING to find things wrong with skyrim as opposed to appreciating it for what it is. That's not to say complaints are not valid. I have a few of my own. (oblivious npcs and lackluster daedric artifacts just to name a couple)

But I can't help but see the inconsistencies in a lot of these complaints. You have people saying that destruction is nerfed. Then you have people saying it's overpowered. The most hilarious thing I've seen is people complaining about all the handholding, while at the same time people are complaining about the map not having clear roads lol. I mean really? Everytime I see a complaint about the obscurity of the map, I can't help but think to myself... "so much for hand holding."