Also, don;t believe the hype. Bethesda was happy to tell you Fallout 3 had sold more units than Fallout 1 and 2 combined. Of course, what they didn't mention was that Fallout 1 and 2 only came out on PC. So when you look deeper and see that Fallout 1 and 2 TRIPLED the sales of the PC version of Fallout 3 you learn something. That in this multiformat world it's a lot easier for publishers to hide the truth, and as as long as the gaming media cow-tows to the industry it will only get worse. Eventually leading to 100% of AAA games from the major publishers making a loss.
The way Bioware have gone from Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect and Bethesda have gone from Daggerfall to Oblivion, i think the direction of gaming is obvious, and it's not up.
When I tried Baldurs Gate, Baldurs Gate II, Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale II they had all in common that they were unplayable. To use Baldurs Gate II as an example, I selected 160% difficulty and the good guys with the paladin I think. Gotted a bunch of dialog and started to play. When the first battle begun, my guys charged the enemy and my Warrior died 2 seconds later....just WTF?!? Started over, paused the game and issued orders. Battle starts, Warrior dies again....I was like: "WTF is wrong with this game?!? Glowing reviews and it's unplayable...."
When I got out of the first cave I gotted a window of dialog. No voices, expressions or motions AT ALL! I can't remember if there was different music depending who you talked too. At this point I had concluded that it was slow, boring, uninitiative and a lot of text.
I quitted. Unplayable, unenjoyable + more text then in a friggin book!
Tried Knights of The Old Republic. WOW what a change! This game is actually playable!
Pause game, select actions and watch them play out. Was disappointed that I couldn't aim myself and that it all came down to character skill but I could abort combat and hide behind a wall so the enemy can't hit me or just run away from melee enemies. That was great. Felt good to have control like in Diablo II again 
I've actually never played a Total War game 