I've had my fair share of bugs, 3 CTD, one stuck in rocks, NPC pathfinding issues, etc. But nothing I would regard as "critical." I keep two alternating save slots for my first character. Worst that will happen is I'll lose 5-20 minutes or so.

The bugs are annoying, and I might even give a shit if I wasn't having so much damn fun.

Playing it on Hardcore with a sneaker/sniper, mostly focusing on pistols because I haven't found a sniper rifle yet, and the pistols are actually a blast to use. Love the iron sights on all the guns too. Switch into FPS mode and pick off targets with ease. I took out 7 raiders outside of V.A.T.S. (though the kill slowdown helped) with a repeater rifle before they even had a chance to rally.

The shocking part was how completely inadequate my character became when I finally got to New Vegas. I had 80 Sneak, 80 Guns, and about 45 Survival, but no Barter or Speech skills! Suddenly I found my progress in a large number of quests getting stonewalled one after another. I had to slowly squeak to the next level and shove all my points into Speech to make any progress at all.

Fallout 3 had very little to speak of in terms of advantages in non-combat skills aside from repair. A few extra caps here, a shortcut there, an extra weapon, but nothing like this! I'm definitely going to have to roll a negotiation-focused character next time through.

The sheer amount of ways to work through parts of the game is a huge leap above Fallout 3. The engine and graphics may not have changed much, but the writing and back end of the game play sure as hell did!