I agree with the level desing and world building. This is possibly the best map Beth has done in their life. All Bethesda's maps used to have a lot of flaws, some of them were huge but empty, some were smaller by comparison but made you feel slow. In each one you used to wish to encounter more enemies, except on Morrowind with it's annoying cliffracers; this time whenever you travel you always find something, the random encounters were reduced drastically though, but several of them were transformed into enemy encounters, and you will see these encounters mostly everytime you travel to all the key points. That means moving from one side of the map to the other and going back will always make sure you find something of interest, it helps a ton that now enemies carry good loot, and the locations you find in your path are greater than before both in variety and quantity, you can enter a random building and expect anything, from an unique item, to trash, to legendary spawns, to random quests. Sometimes you have quests that trigger automatically and you randomly encounter a kidnapped person by just exploring. Not only that but the density and intensity of enemy locations keeps increasing the further south you travel, and there are several times when you just have to run for your life from one place just to find yourself in front of another group of enemies that might attack those already following you, turning several situations into fun huge battles.

I guess the only bad aspect about it is how small it feels, mainly due to the fact that you never get bored travelling, unless you go walking, but even by then you are probably going to encounter a lot of interesting stuff on your way. No other open world RPG this year has managed to create a world as filled as this one, those that are big feel empty, if there was a way to create an incredibly huge open world as well crafted as this one it would be simply perfect.

Once more with people ignoring the details behind every faction in New Vegas to the point their perspective of the plot come down to something as simplistic as "the government people are good, the slaver people are bad". When that is farthest from the actual situation. In reality, the NCR was full of bureaucratic corruption, carelessness of outer regions within their territories to focus on taking whatever resources they can while its inhabitants, caravans, and farms go unprotected (a point made frequently about the NCR in the game itself), and their overall imperialistic nature in obtaining land by removing its inhabitants through means such as terrorizing them by hiring criminals, mercenaries, or assassins to force annexation.

Doesn't sound white in the slightest, but just as neutral of an option as Mr. House's plans that would come with a number of benefits to quickly advanced New Vegas as a power in the west, but also ruling with an iron fist. Or the Independence route where you can leave Vegas to decide its fate without any higher power through the choices you made. The only exception with the NV factions that stood outside of being grey being Caesar's Legion. Though a faction that is hard to justify morally, still offer a number of benefits for their territories that are among the safest and prosperous in the west with little to no raider or bandit activity. They're a relentless and brutal force if you do them wrong, but offer something significant that their greatest enemy, the NCR, lacks. Security and peace of mind (so long as you do not get in the Legion's way that is).

All four factions that offer four significantly distinguishable routes. All having good things and bad things about them in their own way, with the only questionable one being the Legion (who the Institute basically plays as their role in Fallout 4, offering some good, but mostly unjustifiable). And two of those factions being primarily made up of one individual such as Mr. House or Yes Man, don't make them any less of a choice to make as far as factions go.

If you didn't find any of those factions interesting, fair enough. But don't make out their conflict as being more black and white or one faction as more black and white when they're not just because you don't know anything about them.

And this is why AAA games are what they are today.

That's like calling the Fiends of New Vegas a faction. What I would define as actual minor factions are ones who can feel differently about you based on your choices just as much as major factions. The Kings, Boomers, Khans, any of the Three Families, and Followers of the Apocalypse all had this about them with the rep system based off of what you did. There are no minor factions that have this in Fallout 4. Albeit, I have yet to come across this Atom Cats group so I don't know about them, they seem to be the only supposed minor faction mentioned. Might say something about what actual minor factions are in Fallout 4.

EDIT: There is the settlement of Covenant however that has an entire side quest regarding them that will make them feel differently about you. Consider that as a minor faction if you want to. I don't recall anything else so far from what I've seen.

Covenant.

Atom Cats.

Children of the Atom (NOT the ones that attacks you on sight, mind you. The ones you meet during the MQ whom you can interact with).

Diamond City. +

Goodneighbor. + (Both DC and GN are towns, true, but they generally work together like factions a lot).

Vault 81.

The Caravan themselves work as a small faction (they even have a small base of operations).

The Cabot Family.

And there's that crazy cult being tricked by a thief that you can at least become enemies with...

I completely agree with your post except for Mr. House and Yes Man. Again, I don't really count those two as factions but more as options... They are basically just a third choice about kicking out the actual factions from the Mojave Wasteland than anything else.