I'm posting it here because otherwise I would only get answer from morrowind fans. I started with Oblivion and Skyrim, then I tried Morrowind. It didn't match my anticipation, what have I missed? One specific example of something I don't like: There is a fighter's guild quest where you're supposed to kill somebody at an inn. That doesn't fit with what I have learned about FG in Skyrim and OB, they're not supposed to be assasins! Or are they?

The Morrowind fighter's guild is bought off almost entirely by the Camonna Tong, who hate the Thieve's Guild, who are the people you are often sent to kill (tip: find Percius Mercius in Ald'Ruhn to find morally satisfying guidance on how to complete missions). The fact that people who are supposedly good are usually corrupt and harmful is one of my favorite parts.

Morrowind has atmosphere, moral complexity (already mentioned by you, albeit unknowingly), ambiguity and complexity of character, even more atmosphere, so much lore and backstory you can drown in it and a bumload of mythic and historical archetypes in its writing. That's what I like about it.

For everyone of us Morrowind is great for different things, depends who you are and what you seek most in games. I think it's great for the alien world, great atmosphere, the best written antagonist in the series, the most intriguing factions and politics, the best reward-per-effort balance, with handplaced unique loot and hidden treasures not related to quests, and the overall feeling that you're on your own, reading the journal entries that you, the adventurer, wrote, and less handholding in learning the ropes, for me that's the best feeling of freedom.

The complexity, the really awesome RPG-feeling, the atmosphere, the alien landscape, the culture. Everything is brilliant, and with mods it outshines all TES-games except Daggerfall, but it's damned close, mainly due to the fact that Morrowind has a lot better controls.

Here are some of the thing I think are good about Morrowind. This list is taken from Albino Dunmer's http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1418897-each-games-strengths-what-are-they/ thread.

Interesting architectural variety
Interesting cultural variety
Intriguing ambiguities in main quest storyline
Text-based dialogue
Open cities
No invisible borders
Hand-placed loot
Wonderful water, sky and moons graphics
One-click, resizable menus
Jeremy Soule's music

Also 1 feature not mentioned that helps raise it above Oblivion and Skyrim IMO is the wide range of factions with distinct philosophies and their own questlines.
A warrior-type can choose 1 or more of the Fighters Guild, Imperial Legion and House Redoran. Each emphasizes different virtues meaning that characters with similar stats to each other can feel quite different according to the factions they join and choices they make.

I don't find that it's 'better' as a whole than Oblivion or Skyrim. In fact, I find it draws my attention less than the two most recent games. However, to follow Pseron Wyrd's lead, these are the main things I like about Morrowind:

- The unique culture
- Abundance of factions
- Length of faction questlines
- Hand-placed loot
- The lore surrounding the Tribunal
- Architecture