User blog comment:SaintOfAwesomeness/Should I Get 'Oblivion'?/@comment-4113369-20130223104810

Well... It's better than Redguard, at least. Keep in mind that Oblivion was Bethesda's first attempt at levelling almost everything along with the player, so it's a bit rough. Guards are for example always 10 levels higher than you, and an artifact gotten early in the game will be absolutely useless later on. Like in Skyrim, magic has trouble keeping up at the higher levels as well. The factions are kinda crappy too, with the exception of the Dark Brotherhood (genuinely good) and the Arena (simple, but fun). Oh, and it has the most boring setting & landscape out of all the modern TES games, drawing inspiration from "generic western fantasy". And as you've noticed, the graphics were dug up from the bottom of the Uncanny Valley... But the generic landscape does look good for an '06 game, I'll admit.

It's an enjoyable game, and you'll probably get something out of it if you liked the others, but it's not their best work.

(I know I've focused mainly on the negatives here, but it seems there are more than enough people praising it, so I figured I'd show the other side)