Its still fun.

I would have loved to have NV style story-telling or quests or dialogue options.

But even without that, as a straight up shooter RPG-lite with base building and survival mechanics - its a pretty great game.

My theory is that its dumbed down a bit, RPG elements stripped away to attract more people to the franchise. To do that, they had to massively focus on combat. They made the combat system so much better than any of the previous games.

I was never a fan of turn-based combat systems in general. But I'm not much of a twitch-shooting FPS guy either. Fallout 4's combat met the right balance for me.

Its not a great RPG. Its not a "Fallout" game in the same vein as NV. But its still a really fun game. Many of the "hardcore" Fallout fans who despise 4 - don't seem to understand that. Not every one cares about RP. Some people just want to have fun in a retro-futuristic wasteland.

Anyway, mods + settlements kept the game fun for me after the 2-3 story playthroughs.