My comment contains a shit load of spoilers so I am just going to spoil the whole thing.

I personally consider myself a casual gamer even though I have put a lot of hours into games.

I played Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4. I enjoyed each of them very much. Its been a while since I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas so apologize in advance. This is mainly going to focus on Fallout 4. This has also mainly became a review of certain aspects of Fallout 4. This probably isn't the right thread for this but I haven't had the time to sit down like this for a long time and also haven't came across a thread it would fit into better.

Karma System:

I personally did not enjoy the karma system in fallout 3. I felt like I had to play a certain way in order to play more quests or get better loot. I was very happy when New Vegas decided to tweak it a bit and instead have it so it affected which factions liked you or not; if I recall it did affect some quests but not nearly as bad (might be totally wrong here). For Fallout 4 imo there is a very slight karma system similar to New Vegas but really only regarding the main story. However, it did affect dialogue with npcs but not to a great deal. I was pretty happy over all in the direction they took with Fallout 4.

Dialogue:

This kind of ties into the karma system. For Fallout 4 I personally think they could had went a different direction they chose. I really liked how my character talked in the game but didn't like the choices that were given and how those choices didn't really do anything great. I personally like to put my points in charisma because (from experience with other games) I found it lead to better dialogue or even sometimes can get me out of a tough situation (or I could had beat the quest in a different way). For Fallout 4 I mainly chose the charisma for the experience; for my first run if I failed I went on but for my second run I would save and reload until it went through so to speak (basically semi cheating imo). I felt like the options I had were pointless because it didn't affect the outcome 99% of the time. I even reloaded a lot to see if I could go down a different path but generally speaking they lead to the same path. Another bad thing was for some dialogue it would have an option that I thought meant something else but actually was the sarcastic option which was disappointing. I later found out a mod that helped with this tough.

The environment dialogue with the random NPCs was great imo. After a big event happened a lot o the NPCs would make a comment about it and how they felt which I thought was pretty cool. With companions though they would comment but really nothing would happen; I assumed they would leave because of my decision but none of them did. Even for my second play through having Nic Valentine still be with me was super surprising (went with the BoS). Most the endings they basically made you the leader but I never really felt like a leader with a voice more like a gun the guy. I never really had any choices that I wanted to make; it was either because I had to or I was in a situation and force to chose.

Settlements/Building:

I personally really enjoyed the idea. The implementing of it was a bit off but not bad for first attempt. I really liked the idea of my scavenge parts being useful. The idea of picking up crap and the crap actually having value down the road was a great idea. Specially for settlements. I scavenge my heart out for both my play throughs and it paid off a lot. I really never had problems running out of material. Now how they decided to have the perk to link settlements together was good idea but implemented badly. I really wished they made it so if A = B, B = C, so then A = C linkage. But nope couldn't do that. What I found was best way to go about it was to have one settlement with high abundance of resources and slowly link one at a time, build it up, and link more to the high abundance one. Was very tedious and annoying. Specially if you messed up. Had to go find the settler traveling and send him to another settlement to cancel the link.

Settlements were very unrealistic. I found it very hard to make realistic buildings, was difficult to not make a square building, and wasn't much purpose to try and make small rooms for certain things. You could have one giant room for everything and be fine; could even just make everything outside and be fine which I found a bit ridiculous. Even the options they gave you for buildings were a joke. I really wanted to make a futuristic building for shit and giggles but there were absolutely no building items for this. Putting the things I collected in the Institute and place them in a building that was clean was my dream.

Even the limits imo were off. Couldn't they change the values for PC users or based on what hardware you had in your computer.

Modding weapons/Making Chems:

Hats off to this great idea. I seriously am not a guy to sit down and learn what I need for to make certain things and how they implemented this part of the game was great. My first play through just to show I didn't even mod anything or make any chems. I just thought it wasn't worth my time trying to learn this. However, second play through it was an eye opener. It was so easy to do these things. Seriously made things easier and made a lot of sense to me. It made scavenging even more rewarding. This aspect of games usually isn't my cup of tea but again I think Fallout 4 did a great job implementing this.

Scenery:

I just absolutely loved it. I thought that the graphics weren't that bad either. Sure could had been better but it wasn't bad or anything. I would disagree with OP by him stating that no one is trying to rebuild civilization. THE INSTITUTE is doing this exact thing but underground. They attempted but it didn't go well. There are tons of buildings that factions have built to make better. Sure most of the area is still shit but there were tons of areas where people are actually making society better (specially the institute). One reason why there is food or chems still existing is because almost 99% of those areas have some sort of mutant animal nearby. What I noticed when scavenging vast amount of the nuka cola bottles are found in areas no one has been in or are invested with some sort of mutant. When scavenging in town or places people go there aren't very much. I think in 200 years the people did pretty well by just surviving. I seriously think the majority people now got put into Fallout 4's world would be very much be dead in a heart beat.

Overall though the scenery felt great being in Boston. I really enjoyed the feel of the world and who I came across.

Story:

I again enjoyed it. I wish it was longer though. When playing such games like Fallout I like to really immerse myself into the game. When being put in a cryogenic pod and seeing (I played as a female) my husband and baby froze was brutal. Then waking up and seeing my husband die before me and my little baby taken a way by two people was awful. I really put myself in a female's mind while losing her baby and it definitely imo made the game better. Made the choices I made more meaningful. My first play through I decided to go with the Institue because my baby boy (grown up) was there and I generally think that synths are just machines with thoughts. I didn't completely agree with trying them poorly or using them as a resource but I agreed enough to others things and having my baby boy there sealed the deal to go with them. I just wished they put more of a focus on husband, maybe had a series of quests regarding husband like finding a note in the house telling the husband the package will leave tomorrow, then you have to go about finding the 200 year old package would had been awesome. Or even in the memory building you could relive certain events of your history would had been an awesome side quest.

Overall though on story I thought it was great. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. I felt each quest gave enough information or clues of what was going to happen or what was happening. Just wished it was longer and after the big choice there was more choices the player go chose but I know it has to end at some point. One random thing I hope Fallout will do in the future is add a quest every week or add more gameplay after main story ends and you did side quests. They did a cheap never ending quests but I think they could had did those better.

Closing statement I have is I am very grateful to play the game. Even with the problems I think it had the amount of good things out weighed them imo. It is a great day to be alive for video games.