All bugs aside, I have to go with New Vegas. The faction system was really well done, the iron sights (while not holding a candle to the likes of a real shooter) made non-VATS fighting that much more playable and the Mojave Wasteland felt far more open and full of things to do than the Capitol Wasteland.

New Vegas. Only because I happened to get way more bugs on my playthrough of Fallout 3 than I ever did playing New Vegas. As odd as that sounds.

Despite the bugs, obnoxious amounts of $DLC, the arrogance of the studio gating off portions of the in-game map, reserved for that $DLC lessening the value of the game for the customer, and the same shitty engine they used for the other one, my vote is for New Vegas.

Fallout 3 D.C. seems shorter, more linear main story, better side quests, better voice acting, a stronger story / main plot, and some of the $DLC was ok.

Fallout 3 N.V. is a more open ended main story, multiple endings, better companions and companion quests which makes up for fewer interesting side quests, better atmosphere where it feels like life is moving on, instead of D.C. trapped in the stone age, the stories are richly detailed and more mature, your character is far more diverse, and I cannot go back to playing any fallout game now without hardcore mode.

I loved New Vegas so much and it felt a lot more complete and well-rounded in terms of a great main quest arc and interesting side quests/DLC. In fact, I'd say the whole DLC featuring a mini-arc within itself regarding the other courier, Ulysses is far superior to practically all of FO3's DLC combined (although Point Lookout might be able to hold its own). I'll definitely be getting Lonesome Road day 1 of its release.

New Vegas by far, I never finished 3, I have beat NV 4 times.

@DarkShaper said:

New Vegas by far, I never finished 3, I have beat NV 4 times.

this, only I have beat 3 once, and I have beat NV... 5 times.

Fuck NV, I loved Fallout 3 to death, something about NV just didn't grab me at all. I would go as far as to say I very much don't like that game.

New Vegas was way too broke for me to enjoy it.

New Vegas.
 
It reminded me of Fallout 1 and 2 more than Fallout 3 did.

New Vegas. I felt there was just a lot more to do in the game. Haven't finished it yet though, waiting for Lonesome Road to drop first.

Um...I've always dismissed these games, but I loved FO1 and FO2...should I pick up NV?

i like 3 a lot more. maybe it's just because i played it first and played a lot more of it at that, but i like the setting of 3 more than new vegas, and i absolutely love the intro of 3 where you get to experience being born and raised in a vault and doing different things in there throughout the character's youth. and then when you finally get out of the vault, the world opens up in an amazing way. i even escaped the vault as a baby once and it was awesome. but in new vegas, they just put you in the middle of some guy's life, who seems to have no connections, and i don't know who the guy is that i'm controlling and don't really care, so the story is so much less interesting

Personally thought that Fallout 3 had more interesting quests and people to meet. But the world was pretty boring, where as New Vegas had a more dense world to go explore, not to mention it actually had other colors than brown. 
 
And in my opinion, Fallout 3 also had some of the best DLC packs, like Point Lookout and Broken Steel. Havent bought a single piece of DLC for New Vegas.

New Vegas.

@BeachThunder said:

Um...I've always dismissed these games, but I loved FO1 and FO2...should I pick up NV?

yeah, a lot of guys who really liked 1 and 2 but hated 3 liked NV as well.

@BeachThunder said:

Um...I've always dismissed these games, but I loved FO1 and FO2...should I pick up NV?

yeah, a lot of guys who really liked 1 and 2 but hated 3 liked NV as well.

NV. Fallout 3 was a broken unplayable mess that crashed my computer every 10 minutes and made the game unplayable, while NV only crashed a couple times.

I only played Fallout 3 for a few hours, because it kept crashing on me.

Played through New Vegas, loved it. That's my choice.

Fallout 3, I just prefer the world in general compared to New Vegas.

@Laketown said:

@BeachThunder said:

Um...I've always dismissed these games, but I loved FO1 and FO2...should I pick up NV?

yeah, a lot of guys who really liked 1 and 2 but hated 3 liked NV as well.

How similar is it to stuff like Borderlands and Far Cry 2?

Not this again. It seems to come up every few weeks.

Fallout 3, effort was put into the environment. Locations had easter eggs and all sorts of side stories despite no quests that require you to go to those locations therefore rewarding exploration. Random encounters kept things fresh even 100s of hours into the experience.
 
New Vegas, whilst it had a much better story, has a linear map structure. It has intrusive invisible walls, a bland environment and how the game funnels you at the start of the game cures the desire to replay multiple times. Once you have completed the quests you have no desire to do anything.
 
This is of course opinion.

@KarlPilkington said:

Fallout 3, I just prefer the world in general compared to New Vegas.

I agree with this. It was just much better to be introduced to this wasteland and have to learn to survive and fight, compared to the Mojave where your character is a courier and thus has been all over the land taking care of himself with no problem. It just lacks immersion for me there.

Loved both. Spent hundreds of hours playing and replaying.

New Vegas is the far superior game. FAR. SUPERIOR.

I liked both about the same, actually. 
 
But I haven't finished the main quest of either. They both fell to the wayside and I need to get back onto them as soon as I finish Deus Ex HR, Red Faction Guerilla, Saints Row 2, Just Cause 2, etc. 
 
You know, I might as well wait until next year or something.

@PieGuy: how does it funnel you? by making you go down through primm/novac/nipton to get to vegas? I've gotten to vegas at level 1 from goodsprings before.

@BeachThunder said:

@Laketown said:

@BeachThunder said:

Um...I've always dismissed these games, but I loved FO1 and FO2...should I pick up NV?

yeah, a lot of guys who really liked 1 and 2 but hated 3 liked NV as well.

How similar is it to stuff like Borderlands and Far Cry 2?

Not really at all.

New Vegas for sure. Its probably because I feel more connected to the location (I live in Southern California and am pretty familiar with the Mojave/Vegas area) and because I really love old Las Vegas.

Fallout 3, I got way more bugs in NV. Not to mention just liked the overall experience and world of Fallout 3 better.

I felt like the open wasteland of New Vegas was more enjoyable, and I felt like the Interiors were always the weakpoint of the modern Fallout games, so I kinda hated DC. I just loved roaming around with a .308 of whatever it was and hunting critters and all that from way across the world. The shooting gameplay was actually enjoyable (if not amazing) so I wasn't spending the whole time frustrated with not having any AP.

Fallout 3's world was a lot more interesting and a better place to explore. New Vegas was just OK. My reasoning on liking Fallout 3 more is nebulous. New Vegas had good improvements, but 3 had a charm that New Vegas lacked.

Fallout 3. I've grown to love NV some, but there's still something that 3 has that was lost.

I really like both, but Fallout 3 has that "don't know what" that made it a lot more enjoyable than New Vegas. I loved exploring the ruins of DC a lot more than wandering around the desert.

New Vegas.

Neither. Gimme STALKER.