I've always enjoyed tactical combat more from a top down perspective.
Take the old Sega Genesis title, Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun. It had both first person AND isometric turn based combat.
The first person parts were in dungeons and pretty much sucked. You did sorta take turns with the enemies, but for the most part what you'd want to do is set up your party to repeatedly use their ranged weapons. Basically.. it turned an RPG into a first person shooter whenever you were inside a dungeon of any sort. >.<
The isometric turn based play, however, was MUCH better.
The ideal Fallout 3, to me, would include first person exploration and switch to third person isometric turn based whenever combat is initiated. Otherwise... I just don't see it working.
There are enough FPS games out there (Resistance for the PS2 comes to mind as something that would very likely be better than a Fallout FPS).
Just give the Fallout fans their turn based isometric combat and stick to the canon (or whatever it's called) and we'll be happy.
I'm hopeful that the super mutant is just placeholder art until they get the physique right. Nobody has actually bothered to explain what is wrong with it, from the posts I've read (and I've read a lot of them), other than saying it looks more like an orc. Actually it looks like what you'd imagine a modernized super mutant to look like. It's not a classical type monster. It's something you'd imaging seeing in a modern type of game. Take a look at some older sci fi movie monsters. Even a look at Harryhausen's stuff would help. Even in Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, which Bethesda helped fund and did voicework for, has those half-fish people who'd make better super mutants than the one I seen in the article.
The monsters shouldn't have rippled body builder type physiques. It just seems wrong and doesn't look very Fallouty.. at all. Make em more chunky (but not like the Fallout Tactics ones). The small heads on your monsters doesn't seem to help their image much either.
Also the big mutant reminds me of something I'd see in Resistance or Resident Evil. Heck even something like this would look better:
Edit: Further comment. Do NOT make the ghouls all scary looking. It should be based on the individual. Look at the difference between Harold and Set. *sighs* I just know they're gonna have some zombie-ish looking ghouls in some future screenshots. >.<
And like most others I was also bothered by the "nuclear catapult" thing, which sounds dumb... and the nuclear car engine. Not to mention the inclusion of, what seems like, large numbers of Super Mutants and Brotherhood of Steel. If they're in the game then there should be, at most, maybe 5 to 10 from each group.
The main thing I see from the article, is that Bethesda seems to think the only 50's influence is in the propaganda. Like all the old pre-war stuff should be 50's style.. but everything else can be something you'd envision from the 90's and on?
Everything has to be 50's inspired. You need to think 50's from head to toe when it comes to Fallout. Even the floaters and other Fallout mutants are 50's inspired:
Hmm.. this looks like it could inspire a cool new monster:
You don't really need to rely so heavily on super mutants, brotherhood of steel, deathclaws, etc.. Use your head and 50's references to invent some new critters, factions, etc..
Now I've got to change my pants. Again.