Lonesome Road is Chris Avellone's attempt at a magnum opus, and it's honestly one of gaming's biggest disasters.
I'm going to contrast this to Knights of the Old Republic II because Avellone was involved in it, especially Kreia, and Lonesome Road is clearly a reiteration of that story (that's not a criticism).
First, let's get the biggest issue out of the way: the Courier's backstory. At first glance, this isn't necessary a bad thing. Yes, we all want a blank state RPG character to work with, but Fallout has never had one. New Vegas, ironically, is the closest that the franchise has gotten to having a blank state player character. The issue, however, is that the Courier is not treated as a character per se all game from start to finish. There are brief mentions of the Courier's backstory, such as Johnson Nash's comments in Primm, but it's fairly innocuous. Meanwhile, in KOTOR II, it is made clear from the beginning that the player character is an actual character, The Exile, with a fleshed out backstory, actions, relationships, and so on. Obviously, you can change the Exile's trajectory, roeplay as good or evil and whatever, but the story is fundamentally based on the fact that the Exile is a real character, and not just the player's blank slate to play the game. This fact shapes much of the story and the characters in it. In fact, the premise of the plot is built on regaining The Exile's memories, and builds up to the climax. Lonesome Road, meanwhile, decides that the Courier both built and destroyed a sprouting civilization. While you can sort of deny this to Ulysses, it's off-handed, and effects nothing. Not only is this deeply frustrating, but it's lazy writing. It's like if Pippin showed up at Gondor and Denethor freaks out at him because, well, he razed a village to the ground and had sex with Denethor's mom — oh, and all of this happened off-screen, and with little to no build up or context. Sure, why not? Dumb.
Ulysses — an incredibly shallow character. People criticize Ulysses because's trying to be a third way, holier than thou patronizing rebel. This isn't really the problem. He's Avellone's attempt at a war vet with PTSD that's stared into the abyss a little bit too long, so that part is okay with me. In KOTOR 2, Kreia basically did the same thing. Kreia, however, was trying to mentor the Exile, and in the end, while Kreia did talk about her own ideals, it was rooted in a tragedy that the player has come to learn, appreciate, and for which the story, the motivations of your companions, and the protagonist, The Exile, is predicated upon. Ulysses, however, doesn't try to teach the player or the Courier much of anything beyond a questionable tragedy that was supposedly triggered by the Courier, and... again, I do not care. There is no reason to. Why would anyone care after playing 20-50 hours without hearing about this nonsense. Because of this, and while this was not the intent, Ulysses' worldview really can be summed up as, the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
Ultimately, this is a story that really only exists to tell you things about other things. Things I'm not invested in, nor ever will be. It's self-indulgent storytelling.
I'm going to contrast this to Knights of the Old Republic II because Avellone was involved in it, especially Kreia, and Lonesome Road is clearly a reiteration of that story (that's not a criticism).
First, let's get the biggest issue out of the way: the Courier's backstory. At first glance, this isn't necessary a bad thing. Yes, we all want a blank state RPG character to work with, but Fallout has never had one. New Vegas, ironically, is the closest that the franchise has gotten to having a blank state player character. The issue, however, is that the Courier is not treated as a character per se all game from start to finish. There are brief mentions of the Courier's backstory, such as Johnson Nash's comments in Primm, but it's fairly innocuous. Meanwhile, in KOTOR II, it is made clear from the beginning that the player character is an actual character, The Exile, with a fleshed out backstory, actions, relationships, and so on. Obviously, you can change the Exile's trajectory, roeplay as good or evil and whatever, but the story is fundamentally based on the fact that the Exile is a real character, and not just the player's blank slate to play the game. This fact shapes much of the story and the characters in it. In fact, the premise of the plot is built on regaining The Exile's memories, and builds up to the climax. Lonesome Road, meanwhile, decides that the Courier both built and destroyed a sprouting civilization. While you can sort of deny this to Ulysses, it's off-handed, and effects nothing. Not only is this deeply frustrating, but it's lazy writing. It's like if Pippin showed up at Gondor and Denethor freaks out at him because, well, he razed a village to the ground and had sex with Denethor's mom — oh, and all of this happened off-screen, and with little to no build up or context. Sure, why not? Dumb.
Ulysses — an incredibly shallow character. People criticize Ulysses because's trying to be a third way, holier than thou patronizing rebel. This isn't really the problem. He's Avellone's attempt at a war vet with PTSD that's stared into the abyss a little bit too long, so that part is okay with me. In KOTOR 2, Kreia basically did the same thing. Kreia, however, was trying to mentor the Exile, and in the end, while Kreia did talk about her own ideals, it was rooted in a tragedy that the player has come to learn, appreciate, and for which the story, the motivations of your companions, and the protagonist, The Exile, is predicated upon. Ulysses, however, doesn't try to teach the player or the Courier much of anything beyond a questionable tragedy that was supposedly triggered by the Courier, and... again, I do not care. There is no reason to. Why would anyone care after playing 20-50 hours without hearing about this nonsense. Because of this, and while this was not the intent, Ulysses' worldview really can be summed up as, the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
Ultimately, this is a story that really only exists to tell you things about other things. Things I'm not invested in, nor ever will be. It's self-indulgent storytelling.