@JLB: I thought it did achieve greatness, not necessarily in a game sense though!
@Li-ion: I loved Fallout 3. True, the starting 2 hours in the Vault were less than gripping (outright terrible, I thought), but I guess if you weren't feeling the love when you got to Megaton then it wasn't for you (though if you still have it head on over to the High School and see if clearing it out grips you).
Richard wrote a nice article on Megaton
here.
Funny thing is, F3 is the last RPG I really enjoyed. I've gone off them somehow.