Because in some respects Fallout: New Vegas is a very different game from Fallout 3, and that's largely because it's better written. It understands that sometimes you must do awful things for a greater cause, or choose the best of two bad options. It offers you decisions all the time, but it rarely forces you to make any. It understands that morality is ambiguous, and subjective, and that games shoving obvious choices in your face undermines their emotional maturity. It knows that sometimes there is no right choice.
I literally shouted 'YES' when I read this, this is the core of why I love this game.
It draws you out all over the place, pointing you in four directions at once, never telling you to explore but rewarding you greatly when you take the risk.
Disagree with the bolded part. Freeform exploration isn't one of the game's strong suits. The game works best, especially in the first ten hours or so, if you follow the quests to new locations. (Which, admittedly, the game does really well.)
Playing Fallout: New Vegas in hardcoe mode is a revolution. You become a true wastelander, collapsing onto whatever roadside mattress you can find to stave off sleep deprivation, lapping dirty water from toilet bowls to hydrate yourself, going through every bin and abandoned building you can find for morsels of irradiated food and dying almost every time you venture off the beaten path.
I don't know which version of the game the reviewer was playing, but the hardcoe mode in my version of the game isn't anywhere as harrowing. FNV's hardcoe mode is a step in the right direction but doesn't really deserve its name. Sadly this part does seem like the reviewer didn't actually spend much time in hardcoe mode.
Pretty good review overall, like freqnasty said it does seem like the reviewer genuinely spent dozens of hours playing the game instead of two.