To me, a lot of the value of the Bethesda titles comes from their sandbox qualities. As a game in the classic sense, they are mostly awful. But then again, when the world is that large, it is pretty tough to control the gameplay experience and make it something tight and focused.
(They have made some pretty wretched decisions with level scaling and such, but even without these, I just can't see how games with this much content could ever compete in pacing and immersion with something like The Witcher.)
The sheer size and variety of stuff to do makes these titles worthwhile for me. These are the sorts of games that you can play through once, then build a wacky character and go see how many ridiculous situations you can create — and there are so many options that you won't be doing the same things over and over again. Add in the modders, and they become a sort of fantasy-themed toybox a la The Sims. (Buying these games on console would be awful, if only because that huge plus — modding — would not factor in.)
Even if Bethesda titles are not at the very top of my list, I always like to see them coming, because they show that money can still be made selling games that are:
1. Huge
2. Highly moddable
3. Full of decisions
4. Built with the understanding that 100% of the content doesn't need to be seen by 100% of players on the first playthrough
5. Not an mmo