Not to generalize too much, but I see this mostly from people who never played Fallout 1 and 2. New Vegas felt much closer to those than 3 did, and as such I enjoyed it far more than 3.

I absolutely loved 1 and 2 (which now reminds me that I can’t get either to work on my new computer without a techni-colour rave on my screen), but never got the jive of New Vegas. I still really enjoyed it, absolutely, but it could never outshine 3 for me. I may have nostalgia goggles for it, because boy have I sunk hours into it lol.