Is it completely deserted like DC in Fallout 3, or full of life like New Vegas in NV? Or is it a halfway point - some parts of the city are full of life but other parts are abandoned?

I'm wondering, because as much as I love exploring old ruins, DC was a bit of a disappointment for me.

I think Boston will have more life than in DC, but not as "pristine" as in the Mojave wasteland...

It's likely to be somewhere in the middle. Many historical monuments are preserved, hinting that the nukes didn't affect Boston as much as DC.

I dunno, from the videos we've seen, Boston looks pretty darned lively. The buildings are largely intact (some of them anyway) and there are HUGE skyscraqers and city blocks that aren't rubble (hopefully no zoning between sections like in DC). And then there are the scenes of Diamond City, I think it's called, where there appear to be people milling about in substantial numbers... and there's neon signs and lighting in a few shots...

That's not to say there WON'T be barren areas of nothing but deathclaw droppings and swirling dust motes, but I think the actual civilized parts of town will be quite civilized. Which would be good because, like many have said, DC felt so empty and alone. I always found myself gravitating back to Megaton or (more likely) Rivet City just to be around people again.

With Settlements --- plural --- things should seem even less desolate and lonely. Presumably your settlement will have more than like three or four guys in it... say ten maybe, and then you have two or three settlements, that's thirty-odd folk even if you exclude the pre-existing settlements/towns. So much more populated than Fallout 3 where you had very very very tiny settlements except for a few bigguns.

To be fair, all monuments bar the White House were fine in DC as well.

->insert State of Massachusetts reference here<-

I hope it's more lively than DC. I also hope that means there is more to do than DC! More unique things to find.

However, the Mall area was almost shut off from the other parts of DC if not for the Metro system... It's indicative of multiple small warhead blasts. Ever seen the White House? It's already flattened into a steaming crater...

And oh, the decision to preserve some monuments is mainly for that, you know, "Eiffel Tower effect". If there's no Capitol Building or the Jefferson Memorial or that Washington Monument, it's not DC. It's also like that in many games and films: If the scene moves to Paris, the Eiffel Tower will be shown first. If it's in Moscow, it'll be the Kremlin. If it's Rome, it's the Colosseum etc.