IMO, the vast majority of side quests are filler anyway, even in a so-called "deep" game like FO:NV. No matter how much they try to flesh them out, the end up all feeling similar to me. Hence why I figure they're moot.
Hm, in the case of F:NV I certainly see it differently.
There surely is a fair share of simple FedExs, but even these usually add something to the big picture, offer you variety of solutions based on your character build and help establish your character´s place in the gameworld via faction reputations.
The game´s side quests also don´t send you to same-y dungeons all the time, often are at least potentially combat-free, in the first half of the game or so work well to give exploration more meaning, contain solid to great writing and the game has a fair share of more complex side quests as well (the cannibal "faction" quest, for example, is brilliant), plus some companions have rather lengthy and involved quests too. Moreover, there´s quite a bit of mutually exclusive content, quests are quite often interconnected and some also offer delayed narrative rewards in the form of reactive variety of ending slides.
I´d say that, compared to Amalur (or Skyrim), in F:NV there´s percentually vastly more of optional content that feels consequential.
I just get frustrated when I read a complaint like this when you could say the same of so many side quests (imo) in Bethesda's games, but they get hailed as the new-and-improved spit-shined holy grail upon every release.
Double standards sure are annoying (but I don´t think that´s really GameBanshee´s problem and
their review addresses Skyrim´s side quests sufficiently imo), but I think the world structure plays in Skyrim´s favour in this case, since it allows for more organic "customization" in this regard, whereas Amalur´s map structure and regional level scaling pretty much forces players to approach its content in a more procedural manner and that really doesn´t mesh well with all the filler.