Fallout 4 is a great comparison point. It had the bones of something great but the soul was gone. No factions, no interesting NPCs or side quests, no lore. Just a big empty sandbox to shoot stuff in.

This seems better than that at least in that the soul is a lot better. And it has cool lore and factions and NPCs. But where Fallout 4 had fun shooting and RPG mechanics this seems to have pretty poor shooting. Poor driving. Unbalanced RPG mechanics.

Ultimately I think they need to do three things:

1) Fix bugs

2) Rebalance and improve core gameplay (shooting, RPG mechanics, NPC AI, etc.)

3) Add a bunch more content

And it will be an absolutely fantastic game. No Man’s Sky turned the ship around. Can CDPR do it? I’m hopeful. Maybe if they get rid of the people who pushed for this premature release they’ll have a shot...

4) Add mods and let the users fix the game as with Skyrim.

This was the exact line I used to describe it to a friend.

I think Deus Ex signals the same thing, we were expecting a deep story driven game, instead it's a pretty shallow RPG and not a very well done action game, so what's left?

The story seems really good to me. Better than the story for all by the original deus ex.

I mean the original Deus Ex is two decades old, so it's definitely undergone some of the "Seinfeld effect", but I feel generally even a game that old managed to achieve better depth.

Dialog and augmentations actually changed how missions played out in meaningful ways, meanwhile 2077 seemingly has dialog choices to give the illusion of choice (and it's a shoddy illusion since your character always ends up talking their way to the "titular" choice if you didn't make it yourself).

What's the difference between Fallout 4 and New Vegas? I thought New Vegas was just an expansion.

New Vegas has an actually deep story and interplay between several factions. You have great freedom and influence in world events. The characters have strong personality and motivations of their own.

Fallout 4 to my understanding is more or less devoid of such.

New Vegas was a standalone game with expansions of its own. Fallout 4 came after it. A lot of people consider New Vegas to be the only good one to come after the first 2, but I can't commentate on that, as I stopped playing the fallout series after New Vegas and attempting to play Fallout 3.

I love FO 1 and 2 but was never interested in FO3 and even less in FO4. Would you recommend just playing New Vegas?

Absolutely. I was always a huge fan of the originals and other old-school RPGs like Baldurs Gate, and this is one of the few that actually scratches that itch. The game is highly interconnected and every choice has a realized impact.

I played F3, New Vegas, and F4 multiple times, while my attempts at F2 usually failed (aka bored me) before having 4th location discovered.

Both Vegas and F3 are great. F4 is OK, but could be better.

I wouldn't say New Vegas was the only good one, I thought FO 3 and 4 were fun in their own way. But New Vegas was the only great one, and a benchmark when it comes to 3D CRPGs.