To clarify my own opinion on fallout 4:
I think fallout 4 will be a fun game, but the focus seems very much on the action elements (from what I've seen so far). Thats not to say I don't think the game is an rpg as I actually consider a game like GTA V to be an rpg. What I'm saying is that the term rpg is so useless it is more descriptive and useful to use a term like action-adventure instead to describe it.
I don't know, as I don't think the focus seems to be on action. I mean, I've heard a lot of cool things about the housing system, the crafting system, the dialogue system and so on.
It's true that marketing campaigns, in general, tend to focus on "flash" and stuff that will get the larger crowd excited - but that goes for all AAA games. It doesn't have to mean the end result is all flash.
Some people here are annoyed by Bethesda's being tone deaf on what makes a fallout a fallout. Prioritising kill-cams and explosions over a gritty survivalist pastiche. I don't blame them for being miffed but it has been a long time now. Well Bethesda will be Bethesda and the old fallout fans are not the target audience. Better to get behind Wasteland 2 or hopefully Chris Avellone's Van Buren project (if when it happens) as they will more likely float your boat.
I guess they don't necessarily agree with YOU about what makes Fallout into a Fallout game.
Personally, I don't necessarily get too specific about what a particular game absolutely has to be. I think, for my part, the biggest part of Fallout is the setting and the scavenging gameplay. I love exploration, so I'd prefer a lot of that as well - but I don't necessarily see it as integral to the Fallout franchise.
I don't understand why having kill-cams and explosions means they're prioritising it over other things. The original game invented the Bloody Mess perk - which made the entire game into one big pile of gore. The first ones were also extremely violent and disturbing games in some ways. That doesn't mean they "focused" on those aspects either.
I think Howard and crew have done a fantastic job when it comes to the setting and the scavenging gameplay. Both are far beyond the original Fallout games - to me.
My issues with Fallout 3 were the writing, which was just plain bad and overly weird, and the usual TES-level balance/scaling, which means it was a joke in terms of challenge.
Those are huge issues - and I don't think the latter will ever be solved, because it's now a huge mainstream franchise.
But I'm not seeing any clear-cut signs of action getting more attention than the story, the setting, the crafting, the scavenging, the housing, the dialogue and so on. From what I can tell, they've worked very hard to improve a lot of these aspects.