I beat the game in only a few days. However, since I don't want to give away the details of the story, I can't tell my stories really. I think since the forum was nice enough to not give away the story to me that I shouldn't for others. However, I wanted to ask. Do you think the virus was implanted no matter how you use it, if you choose to beat it the way I did?

You should try to complete as many of the Side Quests as you can. They add a LOT more playing time to the game and in some cases add more flavour to the Main Quest itself.

No, if you choose not to use the virus, it should have no effects on the Wasteland.

I've been playing with several character for hundreds of hours of game play time. And I still haven't completed the main quest (is completing the main quest what "beating the game" means?). Not very quick for me! And still satisfying.

I don't really follow the main quest in Bethesda games, at least not more than maybe halfway through. "Beating a game" is subjective, though - some people would define it as doing every single possible thing the game offers, and in a Bethesda game, that is quite an enormous offering!

Unless you put the virus in no one will. Unless the BoS

I would probably consider just beating the main story/quesy line as beating the game. I can see how if you simply just did main quest material, you could complete it fairly quickly, the" depth" and hundreds of hours of play comes from the side (marked and unmarked) quests and the DLC...my first playthough took 30 hours or so. My latest playthrough has been going for 50+ hours and I have barely touched the main quest at all.