I'm not sure what you mean by not being an RPG. It's perfectly possible to play the entire game with VATS (in fact there's seperate perks for both VATS and real time gameplay) and it's also perfectly possible to take the non-violent solutions (pretty much every major fight can be avoided with a bit of diplomacy or stealth and quite a few "dungeons" can be bypassed if you can hack or pick a lock and that's ignoring the skill based conversation options). Besides, while the "morality" does suffer from the old Black And White Morality issue that many modern RPGs seem to suffer from, there's plenty of reasons to be neutral (even if it does make that a little hard) and usually quite a few different ways to solve most of the quests. I myself found it perfectly possible to remain pacifistic (in fact I did a run through with a high charisma and luck character just for fun).
Also, when you're playing realtime, while stuff like the state of your weapon and your skill does effect how easy weapons are to use, there's certainly no random numbers involved in where they hit so I don't know where you got that idea from (maybe you're getting it confused with the combat in Borderlands?).
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Random numbers are involved, actually. Not in VATS, but the real-time gameplay. There were several mods for Fallout 3 for the PC, for instance, which 'removed' the RPG stats and randomizer in the game engine and brought the game closer to being a first person shooter. You might not have noticed it too much, but it's there.
As I said, there aren't enough non-violent solutions. While, at best, a couple fights can be avoided with a few key words, most of the time, you have to indulge in a great deal of violence or stealth. In most of the quest areas, you have, at best, a handful of solutions where no violence occurs, and even then, violence can happen anyway. Tenpenny Tower, for instance, the only 'good' or non-violent solution occurs after you convince most of the residents to let Ghouls live there, and then Roy kills everyone anyway. Nevermind that you most likely cut through a swath of feral ghouls to get to Roy in his hideout.
Of course, there are a few places where violence can generally be avoided, like the Replicated Man questline doesn't have to end badly (so long as you sneak past the Mirelurks), but those are the exceptions, and there aren't enough of them.
You cannot get through the main story or any of the DLC without fighting at some point. While you can talk General Jing-wei into suicide at the end of Operation Anchorage, there's four 'stages' of action before that where you can't really get through by Talking The Monster To Death.
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Personally, I found the 'good' ending of the Tenpenny questline pretty ingenious. It's a Family Unfriendly Aesop about people not always being as tolerant as you'd hope.
Also, I posted a really long comment here, but decided to add it as a whole new review instead. It was slightly below 400 worlds, and only tangentially related to what your review said. Anyway, I pretty much agree with you.
Are you even capable of earning EXP without killing things?
Problem with giving too many non-violent solutions is that all you'd have to do is increase your charisma and then you'd be able to simply click a bunch of dialogue choices to beat your tougher enemies. Unless someone thinks of a really innovative way of implementing a charisma system, or uses other non-violent solutions like stealth.
Yeah, exp is awarded for succeeding in lockpicking and hacking challenges. Perhaps also dialogue challenges, I'm not sure.
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Fallout 3 can't quite figure out what it is.
Fallout 3 is the Fifth game in the Fallout Franchise and the first game in the series published by Bethesda. The game runs on the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion engine and brings the games from a top-down perspective to a third-person/first-person perspective.
FO 3 departs the original setting of the West Coast of California and centers itself squarely in the ruins of Post-Apocalyptic Washington, DC. As Bethesda itself is in neighboring Maryland, it's no surprise that the ruined DC looks great. There's a nice atmosphere going.
Your character is a Vault Dweller, raised in Vault 101 by your single father, James. James tries to instill virtues into your character as you grow up, and then when you're 19, he ditches you and escapes the Vault for who knows why. And that begins your quest to catch up with him out in the Wasteland.
As an RPG, the game is rather primitive. When you have a choice, you tend to only have two - good vs. evil, with a third option far too rare. And even when you make a choice, it generally doesn't affect more of the story, which is a failure of the writing team. Instead, the game relies heavily on combat and action, so having more charismatic or 'intellectual' characters in the Wasteland rarely fits.
But as an action shooter, it's inconsistent, especially early on. Your ability to hit is based on your 'skill' from the RPG mechanics, so having a low skill those will put you in trouble rather quickly. Many of the areas you have to travel through as part of your quests are set up as linear 'action stages' - some of which deliver a healthy dose of combat, while some miss out on great opportunities. I thought the big climax fight of the main story from the Citadel to the Purifier could have been much more grand if Liberty Prime weren't involved and it was just you, your follower, and a squad of elite Paladins assaulting the enemy forces.
Ultimately, Fallout 3 doesn't know what it is. It's not a great RPG because it relies on action and shooting. It's not a great shooter because it relies on RPG mechanics and fails to deliver at key moments.
The result is somewhere in-between shooter and RPG. It offers more choices to a fan of shooters than they usually get, but pigeonholes fans of sandbox RP Gs into linear action sequences.