I've played all 3 extensively and honestly I don't think either are better than the other; they are just very different. (Disclaimer: At one point I was part of the PRC Consortium which makes a big spell/class mod for NWN 1.)
NWN is a real time port of d20, because of the real time combat (to facilitate multiplayer) it plays a bit loose with the d20 ruleset. If you go into it expecting an exact recreation of the pnp d20 experience you'd be very disappointed. However, as an action variant of d20 both NWN 1 & 2 do a credible job. Like the pnp game the idea is to create the experience of letting the player(s) play through a module. As a port of the pnp module concept, things typically get broken down into areas, and the game becomes very scene specific. Not too many modules let you just wander all over exploring; you are acting out a plot which has already been created and is (to a point) somewhat rigid. NWN uses a mixture of voice acting and text; some places (usually cutscenes) have voice acted scenes but many places (and almost all mods) just use text.
Technically NWN 2 has a lot more glitz than NWN 2; but the default NPC AI in NWN 1 is superior to NWN 2, and there were AI mods for NWN 1 that would blow NWN 2's AI away (I haven't seen a NWN 2 AI mod but I haven't looked either). NWN 1's graphic engine is tile based which definitely shows; NWN 2 is not tile based so the areas look much better (but I have heard are much harder to make which will definately impact availability of mods). The UI's are slightly different, playing primiarily a caster I find the NWN 2 UI much better than NWN 1 but YMMV. For drawbacks the camera in both games is EXTREMELY irritating, I spend far too much time rotating the camera to get a proper view and with the standard mouse/keyboard controls it's very hard to do while moving around.
Content wise, for NWN 1 I have to say that the original campaign is very weak, Hordes of the Underdark is by far the best of the expansions. I've played far too many modules to count; but some of them far exceed anything done by Bioware in terms of storyline (but may be a bit rough around the edged technically). For NWN 1, the best stuff really is in the user created content. I haven't played NWN 1 in a couple of years, but the one set of modules I do recall are the Shadowlords/Dreamcatcher series by Adam Miller. Absolutely brilliant stuff. The NWN 2 story starts out GREAT, good story and plot development, interesting characters (mostly), good progression. However it starts to break down after you are about 2/3 of the way through and it totally falls apart at the end where it gets really cosmic. It's like you start out as a hero fighting pickpockets and muggers and at the end you are fighting Galactus. The "good" ending to the story (there are separate good and evil endings) is also the worst ending I have ever seen in my 25+ years of playing videogames. I wanted to smash my keyboard after watching it.
Oblivion on the other hand, is a totally different game concept wise. On the surface it appears to be somewhat similar, being a fantasy RPG. But that is where the similarities end. Oblivion is much more open ended; it is an exploration game not a story telling game. Where NWN tries to take you through a story (letting you influence it slightly) Oblivion dumps you into a world, pats you on the head, and wishes you luck. You are free to explore the world and do pretty much whatever you want. There are plot threads in the world, each of which is like a NWN module in that they are a story that you play though, but unlike NWN that isn't the point of Oblivion. Oblivion is designed to be a single player FPS game, so you wander around in first (or 3rd) person in the world and you are pretty much the center of the universe as far as the game is concerned. Combat is very action oriented, it's fairly straightforward point and click but it can get pretty frantic when you start fighting multiple opponents. You may have people join you from time to time and you may participate in group battles but it's really always about you. This contrasts with NWN where it's really about the party ("party" may be just you and a henchman or a full blown party of 5+ depending on the module you are playing). In Oblivion everything talks; nothing is done purely with text. This is good in that it helps bring the world to life. It's also bad in that they only have 1 voice actor for each race (all breton's have the same voice, etc.) and the quality of the voice acting varies from decent to horrible. And you will learn to despise phrases you hear far too much (Oblivion players will shudder at the thought of "You do me too much honor"). Like NWN (assuming modules support it) the game has a crafting system for you to make your own magic items. Unlike NWN the game also lets you make your own spells. Game balance on the player crafted items is poor, you can break the game (break as in making the entire game trivial) with certain gear or spell combinations. For example, 100% chameleon will make you totally invisible to the game's actors no matter what you do; and this is achievable with player created magic items.
Content wise Oblivion is loaded with places to explore and things to do but is pretty lacking in plot driven story based content. There are quests lines for the Arena, Thieve's Guild, Assassin's Guild (Dark Brotherhood), Fighter's Guild, and Mage's Guild. There is also the main quest, and a ton of little one off quests scattered throughout the cities, towns, and hamlet's of the world. Some are of standard "go get this thing for me" or "kill these creatures/people for me" but there are many that go beyond that. Some quests may require you to do some spying, tailing, and b&e to gather evidence. Expansions add a quest for the Knights of the Nine (save the world a second time in case once in the main quest wasn't enough for you) and the Shivering Isles storyline (taking place on an alternate plane). Honestly if anything I think there is too much content for one character to really experience.
Because Oblivion is really an exploration game, the game levels the content to you. So instead of having an NPC be level 5 he is defined to be your level +/- some number. So if the shopkeeper is defined to be 1 level higher than you he's always 1 level higher than you regardless of what level you are. This allows you to do the content of the game in any order, but it makes things somewhat infuriating in that it removes the feeling of accomplishment you get from levelling as nothing (including bandits and woodland creatures) ever becomes trivial content. If you find this infuriating (and many do) there are mods that turn off the levelling of the world.
In some ways Oblivion is almost like a MMO without the other players.
Technically Oblivion is vastly superior. If you have the hardware to drive it, the world can look very lush and really come to life. If you don't have the hardware for it, it can kill your PC (I have it on my son's 1.8 P4 / 6600 and even at 640x480 low settings it's not really playable). The game is particularly finicky about hardware, certain people seem to have trouble getting it to be stable for no apparent reason. It hates on-board audio; it really seems to want to have hardware accelerated audio (unless you have overkill CPU power).
So the $64 question is which would you like better? If you like story driven games and want to feel like you are part of a story then you are going to like NWN 1/2 better (and NWN 1 is probably the better of those at the moment due to all the mod content). If you prefer a more action oriented game and like to explore vast areas then you will like Oblivion better.
And I think for you to get the best from either you really need to seek out mods; as they greatly enhance either game.
NWN is a real time port of d20, because of the real time combat (to facilitate multiplayer) it plays a bit loose with the d20 ruleset. If you go into it expecting an exact recreation of the pnp d20 experience you'd be very disappointed. However, as an action variant of d20 both NWN 1 & 2 do a credible job. Like the pnp game the idea is to create the experience of letting the player(s) play through a module. As a port of the pnp module concept, things typically get broken down into areas, and the game becomes very scene specific. Not too many modules let you just wander all over exploring; you are acting out a plot which has already been created and is (to a point) somewhat rigid. NWN uses a mixture of voice acting and text; some places (usually cutscenes) have voice acted scenes but many places (and almost all mods) just use text.
Technically NWN 2 has a lot more glitz than NWN 2; but the default NPC AI in NWN 1 is superior to NWN 2, and there were AI mods for NWN 1 that would blow NWN 2's AI away (I haven't seen a NWN 2 AI mod but I haven't looked either). NWN 1's graphic engine is tile based which definitely shows; NWN 2 is not tile based so the areas look much better (but I have heard are much harder to make which will definately impact availability of mods). The UI's are slightly different, playing primiarily a caster I find the NWN 2 UI much better than NWN 1 but YMMV. For drawbacks the camera in both games is EXTREMELY irritating, I spend far too much time rotating the camera to get a proper view and with the standard mouse/keyboard controls it's very hard to do while moving around.
Content wise, for NWN 1 I have to say that the original campaign is very weak, Hordes of the Underdark is by far the best of the expansions. I've played far too many modules to count; but some of them far exceed anything done by Bioware in terms of storyline (but may be a bit rough around the edged technically). For NWN 1, the best stuff really is in the user created content. I haven't played NWN 1 in a couple of years, but the one set of modules I do recall are the Shadowlords/Dreamcatcher series by Adam Miller. Absolutely brilliant stuff. The NWN 2 story starts out GREAT, good story and plot development, interesting characters (mostly), good progression. However it starts to break down after you are about 2/3 of the way through and it totally falls apart at the end where it gets really cosmic. It's like you start out as a hero fighting pickpockets and muggers and at the end you are fighting Galactus. The "good" ending to the story (there are separate good and evil endings) is also the worst ending I have ever seen in my 25+ years of playing videogames. I wanted to smash my keyboard after watching it.
Oblivion on the other hand, is a totally different game concept wise. On the surface it appears to be somewhat similar, being a fantasy RPG. But that is where the similarities end. Oblivion is much more open ended; it is an exploration game not a story telling game. Where NWN tries to take you through a story (letting you influence it slightly) Oblivion dumps you into a world, pats you on the head, and wishes you luck. You are free to explore the world and do pretty much whatever you want. There are plot threads in the world, each of which is like a NWN module in that they are a story that you play though, but unlike NWN that isn't the point of Oblivion. Oblivion is designed to be a single player FPS game, so you wander around in first (or 3rd) person in the world and you are pretty much the center of the universe as far as the game is concerned. Combat is very action oriented, it's fairly straightforward point and click but it can get pretty frantic when you start fighting multiple opponents. You may have people join you from time to time and you may participate in group battles but it's really always about you. This contrasts with NWN where it's really about the party ("party" may be just you and a henchman or a full blown party of 5+ depending on the module you are playing). In Oblivion everything talks; nothing is done purely with text. This is good in that it helps bring the world to life. It's also bad in that they only have 1 voice actor for each race (all breton's have the same voice, etc.) and the quality of the voice acting varies from decent to horrible. And you will learn to despise phrases you hear far too much (Oblivion players will shudder at the thought of "You do me too much honor"). Like NWN (assuming modules support it) the game has a crafting system for you to make your own magic items. Unlike NWN the game also lets you make your own spells. Game balance on the player crafted items is poor, you can break the game (break as in making the entire game trivial) with certain gear or spell combinations. For example, 100% chameleon will make you totally invisible to the game's actors no matter what you do; and this is achievable with player created magic items.
Content wise Oblivion is loaded with places to explore and things to do but is pretty lacking in plot driven story based content. There are quests lines for the Arena, Thieve's Guild, Assassin's Guild (Dark Brotherhood), Fighter's Guild, and Mage's Guild. There is also the main quest, and a ton of little one off quests scattered throughout the cities, towns, and hamlet's of the world. Some are of standard "go get this thing for me" or "kill these creatures/people for me" but there are many that go beyond that. Some quests may require you to do some spying, tailing, and b&e to gather evidence. Expansions add a quest for the Knights of the Nine (save the world a second time in case once in the main quest wasn't enough for you) and the Shivering Isles storyline (taking place on an alternate plane). Honestly if anything I think there is too much content for one character to really experience.
Because Oblivion is really an exploration game, the game levels the content to you. So instead of having an NPC be level 5 he is defined to be your level +/- some number. So if the shopkeeper is defined to be 1 level higher than you he's always 1 level higher than you regardless of what level you are. This allows you to do the content of the game in any order, but it makes things somewhat infuriating in that it removes the feeling of accomplishment you get from levelling as nothing (including bandits and woodland creatures) ever becomes trivial content. If you find this infuriating (and many do) there are mods that turn off the levelling of the world.
In some ways Oblivion is almost like a MMO without the other players.
Technically Oblivion is vastly superior. If you have the hardware to drive it, the world can look very lush and really come to life. If you don't have the hardware for it, it can kill your PC (I have it on my son's 1.8 P4 / 6600 and even at 640x480 low settings it's not really playable). The game is particularly finicky about hardware, certain people seem to have trouble getting it to be stable for no apparent reason. It hates on-board audio; it really seems to want to have hardware accelerated audio (unless you have overkill CPU power).
So the $64 question is which would you like better? If you like story driven games and want to feel like you are part of a story then you are going to like NWN 1/2 better (and NWN 1 is probably the better of those at the moment due to all the mod content). If you prefer a more action oriented game and like to explore vast areas then you will like Oblivion better.
And I think for you to get the best from either you really need to seek out mods; as they greatly enhance either game.