Ever since Fallout 3, many new fans to the series have excused poor writing, shallow world building, and downright buggy gameplay. At the time of 3's release, that's totally understandable for casual players. They did not know what came before, what was lost in the transitioning from the turned based isometric game to the live action, third person sandbox. Games like GTA 3 had already proven that having a large sandbox to run amuck in are fun, granted for a finite amount of time. On the surface, an open world filled with places to see and things to shoot should work well for role playing, and yet the pure shallowness of quests and weak writing derailed much of this. The sad irony is that on the release of New Vegas, a near perfect melding of the old with the new, many newer fans wrote it off, not seeing what it had to offer: Bigger quests, better writing, and genuine role playing. They saw it as more of the same, ignored the nuance, and thought it boring, even though many a time I've seen those claiming 3's their favorite even though they've played New Vegas for a much longer amount of time.
And then came Fallout 4, the much ballyhooed and eagerly anticipated sequel. An improvement over 3, and yet not New Vegas. As the bland sandbox became more and more apparent, a sinking realization arose in even self-proclaimed Bethesada fans: It’s not as good as New Vegas. That game they often dismissed as not as good as 3, as being nothing more than a boring desert. That boring desert, to their surprise, was more fun to play with. They had taken New Vegas for granted. The countless improvements were replaced with shoddy settlements, terrible dialogue/quest options, and heavy-handed combat. And the bugs, the awful bugs of old remained.
The honeymoon’s over.