So I finally got around to playing it and, right below the two-hour mark, returned it to Steam for a refund.

 

Here's what I did like about it:

Ran smoothly on my lowish-end rig (GTX 960 4GB, Pentium G3258 OC'ed to 4.4 that will eventually be replaced by an i7-4790K or Xeon E3-1241V3)

Good FPS action

For the 10 seconds that I had the game booted up to ultra with anti-aliasing on before realizing that 4 FPS wasn't going to cut it--and I knew I'd end up there with the G3258, no matter how solid its single-core performance is--it looked absolutely beautiful

 

Honestly, there was only one thing that made me dislike the game enough to send it back, and it's a criticism I've heard before: the RPG aspect is subjugated to the FPS aspect. New Vegas and Skyrim, for example, are two of the absolute best RPGs ever made, and they incorporate the elements of a FPS into that formula for the perfect balance. New Vegas in particular nailed this. Fallout 4 feels like a generic FPS with a little bit of RPG tacked on, and I just couldn't get into that. If I want a FPS, I'll bust out Left 4 Dead 2, AVA (I hate CS:GO) or Metro 2033. I look to Bethesda for games with great character development and interaction, and I'm just not sure that Fallout 4 has that.

 

I'm anxiously anticipating the next Elder Scrolls sequel, which I have hopes for seeing sometime in 2017.

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