Hardest game I ever played here. Nothing "casual" about it, I spent almost as much time researching online to understand what was going on as I did playing. I got killed A LOT on Adept difficulty, Falmers and Chauruses were a massive pain. Probably would have tired of it without the Auto-Potion mod, at least. I am always trying to play without interrupting combat to go into the inventory menu, that really kills the "immersion" for me. The sucky console UI doesn't help there either.
I also didn't spend much time smithing, brewing potions or trading because i just never seemed to have the right perk or ingredient, I find these actvities boring, I didn’t know where to find alchemy recipes, and the traders never have money worth bothering with.
I agree with OP about the story being weak and the game rather shallow on the whole. It didn’t quite succeed in engaging me the way a book or film would, not for lack of words or pictures, just a rather bland combination of amazing assets. The game revolves mostly around becoming powerul enough to defeat enemies. There is little in the way of branching storylines depending on your choices and actions. Apart from a few OK puzzles, most of the thought required concerns how to power up your character and what look you prefer. Perhaps there are different "gameplay" styles, but it really is about what weapon you find more fun using. You can’t actually sneak or magic your way through the game. If you don't focus on acquiring strong enough weapons, most quests will be impossible.
I don't understand what people mean when they say "character development in Skyrim". Your character is from the start to end rarely funny, never says much, has no life story, and does not change in wizdom, intelligence, charisma or whatever in any visible way, you just get a higher "Speech" skill by repetitively opening books and talking to people or trading.
As for the other characters in the game, the poor scripting destroys any illusion of AI, the only "character development" visible is when they switch from the "friendly" 2-3 dialogue lines to the "unfriendly" or "enemy" 2-3 dialogue lines, with a few exceptions that have a little more of a story that they are eager to share with you, often uninvited... I just walked into an Orc fort and one of them was convinced to leave the Orcs and follow me after two lines of conversation, even though they usually tell me to go away. My "speech" skill is around 50... I think you’d have to be a master hypnotist or maybe the Orcs are really mentally retarded?
I got married, then had to leave the wife behind as I went off to save the world, then when I got back she just walked past me, and said the usual "Hello love" when I clicked on her. . .
All in all, it's all very "virtual" and superficial, which has its own charm, but will look terribly primitive in a few years, hopefully.
There's a weird discrepancy, it is an adult rated game with plenty of savagery, but , apart from kill moves, people never actually touch each other, let alone lie together in full armor, and the gameplay and storyline seem made for teenagers.
