All Bethesda games, while innovative and artistic, have been nothing but repetitive and extremely generic, boring games. I worked on Daggerfall as a tester, name is in the credits, and was fighting with the developers constantly about one common theme I came up with.
"I rather have an Ultima type game where there are 8 truly unique towns, rather than 10,000 similar or exactly the same towns contained in this buggy game you call Daggerfall!"
I eventually got let go.
Morrowind continues this trend however the towns definitely look unique and are fewer.
Gothic destroyed all Elder Scrolls games, fitting more into the Ultima, Ultima Underworld type feel. Another game that was excellent and rarely mentioned was ARX FATALIS. Excellent, very unique and really felt like a true Ultima Underworld 3.
Now I just wish Bethesda would do the engine and let Gothic, Arx Fatalis and System Shock writers get involved. That would be a great combo!