Weird weird weird.. because when i watched my brother play it, i laughed at the random dungeons that seemed very similar to each other. The countless fights and obsession over the agility stat. I thought there was no point whatsoever in the whole game and that most characters look silly. Then i tried it for myself and played 20 hours in one weekend... SCARY cause i got so very addicted i couldn't stop playing. I guess it's the amount of free choices as well as the regular RPG stat hunting thing. I did put down the game after that and haven't touched it since. I'm not sure if i like it 
I watched a couple of guys play it, too, and thought it looked ridiculous. That some crazy first person roleplaying game tried to be actiony and obviously failed at it. And the horse looked awful. It almost died when riding down a steep slope. The extreme hype and praise also turned me off, as always, but when it was time for me to get my own 360 I knew I had to have it.
The first couple of hours are hard to like, I found. I don't know why, exactly. But once you set a goal for yourself and actually start adventuring, it's freaking impossible to stop. I do think you like it, but many games don't really make you want more if you're not already playing them. STALKER was like that for me. Once I got into it, I couldn't stop until I almost passed out from tiredness. Then I wasn't sure if I wanted to play it ever again. But I tried, and then I couldn't stop until early in the morning... It kept going like that a couple of times, and then I simply decided not to play it again.
Do give Oblivion a chance, though. Even if it has flaws, and the flaws are massive, and it's hard to NOT notice all the massive flaws, the experience itself greatly overpowers said flaws. I've been playing for about 200 hours now, and the second to last time I played, I found an entire outdoors area I'd never been to before, and for the half hour or so I was walking around there it felt like a whole new game. It's amazing that they've managed to design the environment so that you can tell exactly where you are on the whole vast world map just by looking at the vegetation, ingredients, and in some areas, wildlife.
I haven't played it for a couple of days, for fear of spending too long with it, but as soon as I'm done working on this school project I'm gonna get way past that 200 hour mark and get myself to the top of the Mage's Guild for once. It was the first guild I joined and after 200 hours of gameplay, I've still only come to the top of one measly guild. It also apparently makes me write entire essays when all I really want to say can be summed up in one sentence. Damn you Oblivion!
