Totally agree. Oblivion was 80% hype and pretty graphics.
Beneath the eye candy, Oblivion was an extremely boring game really. Sure, the world was huge, but it was empty and repetitive. Each cave looked like every other cave[1]. Each dungeon, castle and fort looked the exact same[1]. Every tomb, crypt or ruin looked the exact same[1]. Each oblivion level looked the exact same[1]. The rest of the world was more or less filler to link these places together. Also, sometimes I found an interesting area only to be disappointed that there was no history, no reason for it being there, nothing. (Eg, if I find a ruin waaaay out in the middle of the mountains, I wonder why its there, why is it a ruin, what happened to the people etc etc - Oblivion made no attempt at answering any of these questions).
Besides that, each quest was written as if it was the only quest in the game (ie, the world may as well be paused until you finish the quest) and, besides the hype about the AI, everything revolves around the main character - if you stop and sit on the side of the road for three days, the world is pretty much paused until you do stuff again (besides trivial NPC schedules).
Having said that, the world was quite beautiful and some of the quests did interest me (eg, the assassin quest where you get locked into a house), but overall, the game was dull, lifeless and, besides its grand size and scale, empty.
[1] On the inside. Sometimes there would be a really cool looking (from the outside) structure that got me excited, only to be shown the exact same interior level that I'd seen a hundred times already yet another time.
Beneath the eye candy, Oblivion was an extremely boring game really. Sure, the world was huge, but it was empty and repetitive. Each cave looked like every other cave[1]. Each dungeon, castle and fort looked the exact same[1]. Every tomb, crypt or ruin looked the exact same[1]. Each oblivion level looked the exact same[1]. The rest of the world was more or less filler to link these places together. Also, sometimes I found an interesting area only to be disappointed that there was no history, no reason for it being there, nothing. (Eg, if I find a ruin waaaay out in the middle of the mountains, I wonder why its there, why is it a ruin, what happened to the people etc etc - Oblivion made no attempt at answering any of these questions).
Besides that, each quest was written as if it was the only quest in the game (ie, the world may as well be paused until you finish the quest) and, besides the hype about the AI, everything revolves around the main character - if you stop and sit on the side of the road for three days, the world is pretty much paused until you do stuff again (besides trivial NPC schedules).
Having said that, the world was quite beautiful and some of the quests did interest me (eg, the assassin quest where you get locked into a house), but overall, the game was dull, lifeless and, besides its grand size and scale, empty.
[1] On the inside. Sometimes there would be a really cool looking (from the outside) structure that got me excited, only to be shown the exact same interior level that I'd seen a hundred times already yet another time.