Over my weekend (Tue-Wed) I put in about 16-18 hours on the game. I've always been partial to the rogue/thief classes, but this time I wanted to try something different. I ended up making a Mage/Thief, kind of mixing the best of both classes together for Major Skills. It is definitely an interesting combination, I have proficiency for both heavy and light armor so I can either sneak through and pick off targets at discretion, or just go all out with destruction spells and get in the thick of it.
It really is an improvement over Morrowind in my opinion. I like the fast travel aspect, it allows you to get to objectives quickly when you want to soak up some story/enjoy the quest-lines, and leaves more time for casual exploring. I always felt pressured to find what I was looking for in Morrowind, whereas in Oblivion, most of the time I'm happy to be lost. I like how you are approached by NPCs for quests, for instance...if you recently went through some ruins and came out with a few artifacts and then decided to sell them at the market...a character will greet you later and hand you a note from his employer saying how he/she is interested in those same artifacts that you recently sold, and invites you to meet with them. It feels much more like a living breathing world, not quite to the scale I think it could be/would like it be, but a vast improvement nevertheless. There is a more immediate accessibility this time around, which makes me want to keep playing right off the bat. With Morrowind it took me a long time to really get into it, I would put it down and pick it up weeks later, and then get bored trying to get my bearings back figuring out what it was that I was working on previously. It took me a while to really get into it before I was hooked on how expansive and enjoyable the game could be.
There are only a few gripes I have with it. One being the lack of activity/people in towns...I realize there are technical limitations, but I'd expect an Imperial City at the center of everything, to at least be kind of busy during daylight/dusk. Like for instance walking in to an Inn/Bar, I would expect to encounter music, singing/laughing/conversations, people stumbling around with mugs in their hand, people tearing into some roasted animal parts, that one rowdy guy that just can't handle being intoxicated in public being dragged out by the town guard, etc...instead it is just a few people, shuffling around awkwardly, occasionally saying something random or greeting you over and over again.
Another is the conversations the NPCs will sometimes have with each other. It isn't really a big deal, but there are times when it just isn't natural at all. They will start random topics that have nothing to do with what was said previously, or even respond to a completely different topic when someone is talking to them. It doesn't happen all the time but enough to kind of make you go, "WTF was that all about!?" Though the sheer randomness of it can be kind of comical...
All in all, I've raided a few dungeons, closed about 6 Oblivion gates, got to Grand Champion in the arena, joined the Mages Guild, got an invite to the Thieves Guild after a side-quest led me to being arrested, and made it to The Silencer rank in the Dark Brotherhood (I can't tell you how much fun I had with this one...oh if only WoW had fully developed class specific quests). It is a very enjoyable game, and I will be playing it for quite some time to come.
*By the way for any of you thieves out there, join the Dark Brotherhood and/or Thieves Guild, it will make your life much easier.*