I've had such a hard time getting into this game, at first I felt really lost in how big it is, I'm using a  walkthrough occasionally now to know how to get place and such, and I'm having a blast with it now. It isn't as frustrating as before, and I'm digging the story.

I know exactly what you mean.
 
I bought the game back in May of 09.  Played it for a few weeks and didn't really enjoy it.  I had tried to go straight into D.C. and had horrible results.  Although, after doing some side quests and leveling up, I definitely started liking it.  Ended up buying 2 of the DLC and have about 50 hours logged in with my character.

I wish I could like it as much as other people.  But I kept comparing it to Fallout 2 and kept being disappointed.   I found it better to pull out my old copy of Fallout 2 and replay that instead.