Agreed -- 99% of the depth was in the combat mechanics, and it seemed practically every single quest involved fighting, even those that on the surface seemed peaceful. There's no deep dynamics for swimming, climbing (oh, wait, that's right, you can't climb), acrobatics, survival skills, eating, sickness, romance, friendships, house ownership, climate, or other immersing features that actually
do make the world come alive in a way graphics and music simply never can. It's an Action RPG from head to tail. Games don't have to be Dwarf Fortress, depth-wise, but it doesn't take too much to make the world ten times more immersive and, as a result, enjoyable. If people truly want just a run-and-gun experience, the devs could implement realism settings like in flight sims.
My other gripe was that Bethesda had made the world too big -- there were many stunningly creative quests, but the landscape and dungeons pretty much all looked the same, and many of the quests just revolved around going somewhere to kill something. Oh, and don't get me started on the main quest (close this gate, close that gate, close this gate, close that gate.... uuuurgh!).
Another gripe I had was how everything revolved around you, and how the world was so incredibly static. Fail to interact with someone mid-quest and they'll obediently stand around waiting for you for years until you feel the need to come back to them (this was especially troublesome when it came to the main quest -- I would have loved to just ignore it and watch things fall apart around me
). Kill someone and their body stays where it fell forever. If I was Bethesda I would focus not on making a huge world, but on making it as deep, dynamic and lifelike as possible.