I didn't fit in any of the available spots, AcropolisParthenon, so I didn't vote. Hope that's okay. My vote would go between 'all right' and 'bad'; I'd call it mediocre, overall. As its own game, it might rise to 'all right'. As a sequel to Fallout 2, I'd call it bad. As a sequel to Fallout, I'd call it awful. As a continuation of the series as a whole (thus as a sequel to Wasteland), I'd... well, I don't think English has words like that. I think a big sticking point is where you came in to the series; generally (and I do mean generally) speaking, you'll like it a lot better if it was your first.
I did like the appreciation it gave for the real danger involved in facing down an angry deathclaw. In earlier games, sure, they were huge and could mess you up easily if they closed- but they moved through the map at walking pace (unless you're the kind of loon who played Tactics in real-time, then I suppose they might've run) and weren't actually that dangerous if you had a decent gun, decent skill, and could pin them down with eye shots. This was counterbalanced, however, by pretty much every other enemy: ghouls are just zombies, super mutants are just orcs (and the explanation for what they and the deathclaws are doing in DC made me roll my eyes so hard I pulled a muscle in my face)- doubly disappointing when you consider that this is Bethesda, who had Blizzard orcs before Blizzard did- the Enclave are even more cartoonishly evil than they were in Fallout 2, and pronounced wrong on top of that.
The idea of setting the game in DC gave it potential; the area features lots of interesting buildings to explore; a shame we barely got any- and what kind of DC setting doesn't put in the White House? I'd understand if it was blasted into a crater (though that could lead to fun, exploring-the-secret basement areas), but head to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, and all you find is a generic pile of rubble. Blocking off pathways via collapsed buildings, forcing you to move around via subway stations was a neat idea; it'd've been more so if the stations weren't all identical.
So far as the mechanics go, the game played like Oblivion: Gunpowder. The transition to first-person and real-time was a challenging one, and the addition of the VATS targeting system (apparently, humanity is so mutated at this point that their eyes on now on their Pipboy-clad wrists) made the combat run as smoothly as a fire in the midst of a soccer riot. The series has always walked a fine line between the dark and the silly, and while I suppose watching an enemy's head explode in slow-motion might've been amusing, if that's what you were looking for, I can't imagine it holding appeal when you're seeing it happen for the 200th time, even if your response isn't to snarl in frustration, go into the options menu, and yet AGAIN turn the damn kill-cam back on and then back off, hoping that it'll finally stick (it won't). It feels crowbarred in and makes little thematic sense, and while I appreciate the attempt to tie it back to earlier games, it ultimately detracts from gameplay, since while you're watching yet another raider's head explode, his friends are running up and pounding you into the dirt. I found I did far better just ignoring it- but this weakens an already nigh-meaningless attribute system still further. The attempt to balance RPG mechanics and action game ends up with both feeling undercut.
A further word on light/darkness of tone: in one of my early games of Fallout 2, I strayed down into territory that was far too dangerous far too early and found myself ambushed by an Enclave patrol. I survived the fight (barely), but was completely out of ammo. Not wanting to give up the loot, I began limping back northward to unload it, running from every fight I ran into, until I ran into a merchant fighting off raiders. I hid until the dust settled, then approached the wounded merchant and his child, the only survivors. The merchant refused to deal with me because of my reputation, but a sledgehammer looted from a fallen raider changed his mind in a hurry- specifically, changed it into a well-mixed paste, smeared over a wider but much flatter area, not far from the corpse of the woman I assumed was his wife (I didn't kill her, but I did use the same hammer). The child ran, presumably screaming, until he was out of combat range, and I ended the fight and began looting, but while I was doing so, he wandered back down. Here I faced an organically emerging moral dilemma. This child has just seen (I assume) both his parents brutally murdered right before his eyes. All he has ever known is lying in bloody ruins before him, and one of the men responsible is stealing from his father's backpack as he gazes on in slack-jawed terror. Is it crueler to let the kid go, leaving to suffer horribly (if briefly) in an uncaring wasteland before succumbing to beasts, raiders, or the climate; or simply to chase him down and slam a sledgehammer into his crotch until he stops moving (evil is so much fun)? This was a choice I couldn't've faced in the later games, as they chose to make children invincible, which makes no sense at all, given the other grotesque sins you can commit. The game got an ESRB M rating, didn't it? Perhaps it's an international thing; other countries have their own ratings systems (oh, RSAC, where are you when we need you, with your sensible, objective measurement of a game's objectionable content?), but that's a more detailed discussion for another time. Bethesda then decided, however, that the children being immortal also gave them free reign to be obnoxious, confident that your silly little man-portable nuclear slingshot wouldn't even slow them down.
I think that covers most of what I have to say. There is of course more, but I've taken up enough space. In summation, I'd categorize the game as full of good ideas, poorly realized; bad ideas, poorly realized; and decent ideas, decently realized.
