Currently, I'm around level 2, in my second dungeon, and developing some opinions about the game and the game system.
I can see why people are digging it, it's part of a multi-step game engine development that Bethesda has been working on for a long time; which I was able to look at when I purchased a copy of Fallout 3.
The actual game itself is very well finished; dungeons look overgrown, abandoned, ramshackle and old; the villages are (so far) laid out in a reasonable manner; and the level of detail in the visuals are best of the best. Even playing this game at the lowest settings, I'm very impressed visually.
The storytelling so far has been well above the standard that would be the median for video games; but about on par, maybe slightly above, what one would see in a table top game. The content was planned out in advance, with a great deal of anticipation, so I am not surprised that some random guy in town has a sidequest to help you seal their relationship with a girl in town, by doing some small lying (and handing over a fake letter). Those sorts of stories showed up in lots of older games like Wasteland and Fallout 1 & 2; and they add extra bits of humanity to the setting.
Leveling up abilities is pretty straight forward; you 'use' them (on targets if magical attacks/weapons; or if attacked if they are the 'armour' skills), and they build up. A nice continuation of several other game systems (UO, EQ, DS, RQ, WoW), and at least one Tabletop rpg system (which... I cannot recall the name of; but I believe "Rune-something" might have been how it went).
However, I'm not entirely sold on Skyrim's 'perk' system; specifically because I feel that "trees" are not the ideal way to lay out abilities for characters. Especially not "segregated" trees, putting 'light' and 'heavy' armour is disingenuous at best.
Personally, over the course of a few years in LARPing, I've worn chain shirts, doubled up chain shirts, coats of rigid scale-plates, wisby plate and head to toe hard plate. Some I've borrowed, some I've made, and some I temporarily tried out, and didn't fit.
In my experience, they're... not all that different* so I don't see a 'logical' reason to separate such skills.
*:
Aside from all of that issue in character power development, the gameplay is neither overly linear, but it's not entirely open ended. Dungeons are linear; the world is not; it's not a bad method for splitting up the game world.
In any case, if anyone else has thoughts on this game, I'd like to hear them.
If people are looking to try the game out before deciding to buy it, demonstration versions are available; but you'll have to find them at the bay.
It took about eight hours to download 5.3 Gb, which wasn't too bad, and the box I'm running it on is a several year old intel 2.53, 4gb ram, with a 512 geforce card; barely strong enough to run the applications I need for animation or 3D modelling.