I played Fallout 3 when it came out, and just got bored with it fairly quickly. It's got that Bethesda vibe where everything is great at first, but then you start to get further into the game and everything starts to seem copy+pasted to make the game artificially larger and longer. Is it like that at all? I see it mentioned as a great game all the time, but I also saw that about 3 when it came out.
Fallout 3 is, in many ways, a modernized retelling of Fallout 1 with slight tweaks to make it feel more original than it is (and I say this as someone who loves 3). However, New Vegas is stronger in that it does what 1 and 2 did well: give perspective on a post-apocalyptic America 200 years after the bombs fell. The Capital Wasteland felt insanely empty and uninhabited for being a major region 200 years after the war whereas the Mojave wasteland felt far more lived in with more lore and character development.
Fallout 3 is to the classic games what The Force Awakens is to the Original Trilogy.
I mean that with all the praise and criticisms that go along with it.
I absolutely love 3 though. I just wish that Bethesda had learned some lessons from New Vegas rather than doubling down on the worst aspects of their older games for 4. There's some good developments but stuff like the distinct lack of side content and such really hurts the game.
Also, damage resistance sucks. Damage threshold is such an easy to understand system and I have no clue why Bethesda insists on using flat percentage decreases of damage because it just doesn't allow for good mechanics like armour piercing.
Also they should hire someone who knows how guns work because I'm not a gun nut or anything but even I get pissed off at the way their guns look. And also bring back ammo types instead of tying it to magic weapons that convert .45 into an explosive rounds.