Is melee a viable option in NV? I liked it in F3 and was wondering whether its improved. Also where are these 'special moves' you can now perform? iv seen no evidence of them so far

I think people need to teach them to you, I've only been taught one so far.

Once you get at least 50 melee weapons skill, you can do the special attacks in VATS. I haven't used it myself, I just saw that in one of those loading screen tips.

EDIT: The skills you get taught are Unarmed attacks. Completely different. Also they make unarmed fighting much more interesting, I might have to try that out.

Yes, it's very viable. My last run was energy weapons. After I got Meltdown, I picked up melee weapons so I didn't blow up myself and allies. Thermic Lance tore through everyone. I used it as my anti-armor weapon.

I could never do Scrap, though. I didn't have enough AP.

Honestly between my melee character and guns character the melee was better. No need to worry about ammo. You'll also have more caps because you can sell any ammo you find. Melee weapons like the bumper sword are not only sweet looking but it's a beast too. Unarmed is very powerful too, especially against unarmored oppononents.

I learned all the unarmed tricks. They're cool and pretty handy. There are 4.

Edited:
Unarmed for Unarmoed.

The special unarmed moves have to be taught to you. Ive got them all.

i use melee on the slower things i need to kill. is very good just run around them till they die.

Melee would be slightly harder compare to Unarmed (from beginning) and range (bar explosive) late game.

Melee weapon skill has the distinction of having the highest damage-per-hit non-unique weapon in the game (the thermal lance), and the only weapon that completely bypasses DR (the mantis claw).

It is indeed very viable I'm doing a legion melee playthrough right now.

Melee also has the distinct advantage of lower cost through no ammo use.

The only disadvantage is that you will have to close range with your opponents. There aren't many snipers in New Vegas though, and there are more dangerous melee enemies than dangerous ranged ones (there isn't the equivilent of a super mutant master really in FONV).

NV really gave melee some love, including special moves. The only disadvantage is lack of a ranged option for dealing with clustered enemies. If you have the points I recommend going with explosives as your secondary weapon skill

I have guns and melee char, and melee owns so hard. With a super sledge and remnants power armor, deathclaws die in 3 normal strikes.

Excellent point, to do melee effectively, you really need serious high-DT armor because you can't take things out at range before they get hits on you and you have to brave the barrage and the bedlam to get up in the face of enemies with shotguns and assault rifles.

Powered armor is critical to a high-level build, the damage you get from the ST bonus and the high DT will make you a god. Combat Armor Mk 2 is alright too if you don't find a way to get trained in powered armor.