I found it even more disappointing than the main game because I thought many of the areas looking so great and just brimming with possibilities ...
I was watching the developer of Fable 2 talking about their upcoming game and he said something which striked me as something very true. Every game can tell a story, but the ones that end up really really good are the ones that deliver
emotion, and some of the strongest emotions is love and friendship.
After playing MGS and MGS2 the hollowness of Oblivion was painfully clear to me.
In MGS even the tragic tales of the
villians brings you close to tears, and every time you believe you know the story, it takes a complete U-turn. Looking back to the games I loved the most,
emotion have always been there, and even when I forgot the end, I never forgot thoose emotions. The way I felt for my friends in games like Gothic, KOTOR, Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate.... This is not only true to roleplaying games. Even games like Max Payne and Tomb Raider: Legends managed to deliver alot of feelings. Feelings of loss, about hatred and revenge, about friends, about love.
In Oblivion, all the feelings are
null. I remember when Martin died, that was probably the only time I felt something, because unlike 99.9% of the oblivion's generated population, it was someone I remembered. Beyond that, No friends. No love. Generic villians without face, background or history. You do not fight for your friends, with your friends, for your country, for your world, because there's simply nobody who you care about.
Oblivion have more issues, but I think I should pinpoint that as the largest hole of the game.