I seem to remember reading somewhere that NV was supposed to be bigger than Fallout 3 and yet it seems to me that it is much smaller, but I can't quite tell. Is it bigger and I'm just tripping or what?

But there's SO much more to do in that space!
The exploratory aspect wasn't quite as good as FO3, I'll admit, because no-one designs free-world exploration as well as Bethesda.
But there are SOOO many quests, and they are SO good!

I spent 40 hours on my first fo3 character, and 120 on my most-played.
I already put 80 hours into my first NV character!

Another one of these threads, yes the world space is smaller. But instead of generic dungeons and loot you get loads of great intresting quests.

it is a lot smaller than fallout 3, and the locations are crap with nothing in them, no loot, no back story, there just empty most of the locations are
and most of the quests are crap

Meh the quests don't seem any better to me.

They kind of trick you in that anything west of Jacobstown for the whole entire map north and south is not accesible. Also there is Nellis, which takes up a lot and the east side of the colorado, which for the most part is unused too.