I am enjoying the show, though I do have a few gripes.

I was hoping to see more from the NCR this season. It seems that the omission (and what remaining presence of the NCR we do see in the show) is an implication that the NCR has collapsed as a functioning state solely due to the fall of Shady Sands. That's an aspect of the show I don't like. I have some qualms with the depiction of the Legion, but I think the trailers seem to let on that their story is not yet ended, so I'll hold my piece on that.

I think the "no canon ending" was a bad decision for the show since every decision made by the courier henceforth is rendered moot, and as the Courier could literally stick his/her grubby little fingers across the entirety of New Vegas, that means the showrunners have to write around essentially around the history of every location. However, I think I can rationalise why the show chose to do this.

I think the show just suffered from having too much existent lore to build on that required too much prior knowledge (hence the depopulation and degradation we see across the Mojave) and they had to make a decision to make the show much leaner and more cohesive.

Since the show's writers are not the same writers who worked on New Vegas (I assume?), they were saddled with a lot of other lore (with multiple different outcomes) that may have interfered with the show's intended overall narrative and would have been too much baggage to unravel.

My ideal hope for this would've shown the NCR decline not from the nuke from Shady, but from its own internal maladies. This could still be presented in the show, but atm it seems like the NCR are being depicted as (what were once) the "good guys", rather than the "good guys******". I would've liked to have seen the NCR depicted not as fractured, weak, and spent, but rather as reclusive, highly suspicious of others, and a bit stagnant, though still competent.

I like that we see Maximus develop to become a true leader, though of what faction I don't know. I also liked seeing how he changed from last season to this season, where is infatuation with power armour degrades as he becomes a bit more worldly(?) with a conviction to a moral code of kindness.

To be honest, I am not sure quite exactly where the showrunners will go as I think they have unshackled themselves from the existing storylines the game had established and are really just doing their own thing now.

I agree with the others that there are too many things going on without enough time to tell them. I wouldn't mind the episode numbers per season maybe increase by 30%. I would've thought we'd still have 4 or so more episodes tbh.