Pretty disappointed so far, this meta user review seems like what I would expect to see from honest review sites:
So this is Fallout 4, the title some gamers have been waiting for with devotion since its announcement. I had played big chunks of Fallout 1, completed Fallout 3 and New Vegas and especially appreciated New Vegas` great storyline/characters and liked Fallout 3 for making such an hard transition into the FPS-Genre without losing the feel of the franchise. That said, I wasn´t very much hyped for Fallout 4 since I didn´t really see too much variety in gameplay to keep me entertained after the already quite similar New Vegas and 3, plus one can see the nuclear wasteland and all its factions only so many times till it eventually gets a bit too familiar.
Now that Fallout 4 is out, I feel a bit sad for all the ones who have so eagerly awaited this game.
Technical aspects: Fallout 4 is not the most beautiful game ever put before the eyes of gamers, but the quality of the graphics and textures suffices for the most part. For the most part, that is, because there are still some annoying textures that pop up or just won´t load properly or seem very grainy when directly looking at them. That´s not very much desired, but in a game this big it´s forgivable and no real buffer. What is a buffer, however, is that the framerate leaves a lot to be desired on the consoles, regular framedrops are the norm. The AI, too, varies from being ever-observant to degenerating into plump, brainless bullet-sponges that get stuck behind small bushes and walls, ready to be riddled with gunshots. Such glitchy behaviour is so regularly encountered, I started to incorporate it in my startegy of survival to predict that at least one enemy would be easily taken down due to that behaviour. However, we were warned, Bethesda-games are usually riddled with bugs. This may not suffice as an apology, but it didn´t diminish the fun of playing too much that I wanted to quit.
The world: No doubt, this is what Fallout 4 has going for it. It´s a wasteland with heart, where nice little surprises await in some seemingly abandoned cars/houses, the paths are all but beaten and feel bursting with mysteries that want to be unravelled. From interesting scrap-metal-palaces to the ruins of gloomy suburbs to just wandering the wasteland, there is much to be seen. The new, slightly lighter colour-pattern helps to create the feel of a wasteland-world that is slowly starting to feel very natural to its inhabitants. Thus it looks bleak overall, yet still strangely inviting. However, one cannot shake the feeling of "been here, done that", especially when having played Fallout-titles before. The world is as inviting as ever, yet it feels a tad too familiar and close too Fallout 3/New Vegas by now, without real higlights like the life-filled casinos in New Vegas, which is why strong gameplay is needed to shake things up a little.
Gameplay: Sadly, gameplay is the least riveting thing about all of fallout 4. It does very little to exceed the expectations that people had, it still feels as sluggish as ever, guns don´t give that much feed-back as one would have wished and feel very similar to each other, so that once again the VATS is the saving grace of Fallout not becoming too stale over time. Furthermore, enemies do not need some special tactics to deal with them, it usually boils down to "shoot it till it doesn´t move" which gets very familiar very fast. The customization is nice, but why should I feel excited about customizing guns that do not really have much of a feel to them and are quite similar in the first place? On the other hand, the house-building is maybe the freshest idea bethesda has had in a long time and I will give them credit for that, if it is not me, at least many other gamers will have fun playing Wasteland-Architect for some more time in F4, good job on that one.
Story & Questlines: I will not talk about the story for obvious reasons (spoilers), the game is too fresh out the oven to discuss that. What can be said: It´s enough to keep you engaged, but it doesn´t reach the heights of NV and falls flat when compared to the strong competition like Witcher 3 and even GTAV. A fortiori, I was very dissappointed that not even the normal questlines tried to be something special, they´re typical fetch-quests, shoot-up-the-bandit-quests, go-there-look-at-that-quests. Sure, those are the standard for open-world games, but Fallout 4 has no stories in that quest-lines to keep me engaged, GTAV and Witcher (that often have similar quests) have the decency to make me care for the quests through meaningful dialogue and superb characters. Fallout 4, on this aspect falls flat, it just indulges in its own sense of dark humour yet completely forgets that it also needs good characters to make me care for the tasks they´re posing.
Overall, Fallout 4 plays, looks and feels familiar and if it wasn´t for the engaging premise of the nuclear wasteland per se, it would be a standard open world. Furthermore, technical issues pile up and thus drag the game down. 65/100