I didn't make it far enough in the game to write an informed review, but I agree with this review. Since 2 and New Vegas were my favorites, it's rather disappointing that 4 became a more dumbed down version of 3.
The settlement building is a good concept in theory, but base building is rather cumbersome when you move around from a first-person perspective on a ground, rather than a bird's eye view like in an actual strategy game.
@Valiona: I can\'t recommend the Sim Settlements 2 mod enough, and the Clean and Simple series to go with it. The former does the automating - you plunk down plots that build, maintain, and upgrade themselves (and look very snazzy while doing so). The latter cleans away the rubbish associated with settlements before you get to them, and makes everything nice and neat to let you build as you like. Both are very active, SS 2 has an entire team on it and Ca S is maintained by one person who loves her work to death. Can\'t tell you how many hours the two mods alone have saved me.
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Good with mods, poor without
Okay, so I got this thing on sale with the entire package of DLC, well after it was made, and modded it from the very beginning to avoid the parts I don't like. I've also played New Vegas and loved it to death.
Most of the content I enjoy - dialogue being printed out, settlement building being automated out of my hands, power armor's toughness, etc. comes from mods in one form or another. Heck, I got the Clean and Simple series because I didn't want to sink hours into cleaning up all the trash in the settlements.
That said, I'd be lying if I said the main story wasn't at least intriguing. It gives you a personal goal and it lets you be a man out of time rebuilding the world as you see fit. Nothing wrong with that. Where it falls flat is player engagement. You're stuck with the one story and the one past...it's not particularly fun if you wanted to play something else.
Voiced dialogue was okay, but a mistake for a critical reason - it makes player choice expensive. If you have to code voice lines for skill checks and choices and differing outcomes, paying V As is going to get stupidly hard real fast...and that's probably why the dialogue is as memetically limited as it is.
I'll confess, though, that there seems to be far too much fat in the game in general. With the DLC added, it's a pile of side quests and distractions and approximately five billion things to do, and then there's radiant quests and defending settlements and...you get the idea. I've had this game for three years and I STILL haven't reached the Institute because I inevitably get stuck in a gameplay loop of 'solve problems, build settlements, gather resources, GOTO 1' once things get big enough. Most of this is due to radiant quests and settlements not managing their own defenses properly (seriously, prebuilt walls next time, please).
Overall, it's a good time waster. Is it a good game? Kind of - if only because I play a lot of strategy games and like the settlement building, and because mods alleviate the dumbest parts. Is it a good RPG? Well, in a sense - you can play your story, join factions, and mess around. Is it a good Fallout game, by the standards of the originals - 1, 2, and New Vegas? No.
I'd give it a 7.5/10 as a game...and a 3/10 as a Fallout game.