I bought New Vegas the day it came out (it released right around my birthday, so I had money), brought it home, installed it, played for about three hours, and shut it off in anger when it deliberately stuck me in a no-win situation, something Fallout 3 had never done.

I bought it expecting a sequel to a game I had dumped hundreds of hours into, and instead I got a spin-off not even programmed by the game's original developers. I was pissed: everyone sang this game's praises, and I just did not get it at all.

Fast forward a few years, and a co-worker and I got to talking about the Fallout series, of which she was a huge fan, and she let slip that New Vegas was her absolute favorite. I was floored, and asked her why.

She rattled off a litany of reasons similar to those you enumerated in your review, and by the time she was done, I realized I had made a terrible mistake: I went into New Vegas expecting Fallout 3, Part II. When New Vegas failed to live up to that hype (which, let's face it, would be impossible for it to have done), I thought the fault was with the game.

The fault was not with the game. The fault was my own blinders.

I went home that night, booted New Vegas up with the intention of playing it as the game it was, not the game I wanted it to be, and everything changed.

New Vegas is, hands down, one of the best Fallout experiences you can get, and certainly the best of the most recent crop. Obsidian crafted a world that is deadly, that demands you take it seriously, with characters and factions and enemies and obstacles that absolutely will not hesitate to cut you in half if you step out of line. Think I'm wrong? Just ignore the advice of literally everyone in town, and head north up the ruined highway after you deal with the Powder Gangers at the start of the game.

Sure, Fallout 3 had Old Olney which would do a similar thing to you if you ran across it when you were a weak little nothing, but Olney is on the other side of the map from where you begin the game, and the chance of you wandering in there unprepared after stumbling across it is quite low. New Vegas, on the other hand, will throw Deathclaws at you when you're level one, but only after telling you about a dozen times that it's really not kidding.

It may not be perfect, but it's a masterpiece nonetheless, and the day I earned the trophy for beating it in Hardcore mode made me feel like I'd truly survived the apocalypse. Your review nailed it, man.