After playing Skyrim for 96 hours (and having my PC wipe and having to restart the game) and then for another 100 hours, I can say that I'm quite knowledgable about the game. I did everything that there is to do (generally, all of the main attractions of the game (e.g. didn't do every bs misc. quest)), and got all of the achievements (through Steam). At first, I'll admit, I was blinded by the hype. I couldn't stop playing in the beginning. The lore and the feeling of adventuring had captured me in a way that only another Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy (not 14, 13 or 12 lul) can do. I attempted every form of gameplay, 2h wep, sword and shield, magic, being a sneaky thief, I loved it.

After playing the game for a while, I realized that the game itself wasn't that good,  it was the idea of loving it. It was the hype of the game I had waited for so long for, and waiting for the "epicness" of the battles. With 2H weapons, I realized how mindless I had become in my Daedric Legendary armor, just swinging death away at everything that came close. With magic, as soon as I had leveled a bit, I realized how dull the higher level spells were. (IMO, only the first two levels, Novice and Apprentice, were cool. After those, spells were, how should I say...whack (except for the Master level, but with that long of a casting time, why bother?)). I attempted the game on a harder difficulty, and it was the same principle as lower difficulties. Just more health of the enemy, I take more damage, and the enemy might heal, if not, just heal itself more frequently. I had grown tired of the game on my second playthrough, and just wanted it to end.

***Spoiler: It's bad enough that the ending fucking sucked. The 'main storyline' is a joke and an excuse for this sort of game. Going to Valhalla is cool and pretty and all, but the "final" boss fight...who are you kidding? It was just frustrating trying to call the dragon down to the ground, and when he finally did, he died right away! 0 satisfaction for such a grand game.***

So then I remembered that for the holiday season, I had received Dark Souls for ps3. Now, being a huge fan of Demon Souls, it was on my to-buy list, but games like Skyrim and Battlefield and Uncharted simply forced Dark Souls to sit on a shelf. After trying it out last night for the first time..boy, am I upset that I hadn't played it earlier. After playing Skyrim, I forgot the excitement that previous-gen RPG games could have. CHALLENGING AND UNIQUE BOSS BATTLES? RARE WEAPONS?! DIFFICULT (and enjoyable!) CRAFTING?! GAMEPLAY TACTICS?! To believe that not every area in one game is rehashed to look exactly the same? Never will I ever have to see another Draugr in my life. I was so impressed and excited to play an RPG again, that I had played it for roughly 8 hours straight yesterday, and planning to continue now. The idea that a video game could be such a challenge, but prove to be satisfying when completing the smallest task from reaching point A to B made me realize just how dull Skyrim was. 

/rant

TLDR; Skyrim was a letdown, Dark souls is better. Agree, disagree? 

Winner: Dark Souls

that had to be done... sorry...

I actually liked the gameplay of Dark Souls more, but I enjoyed the freedom of Skyrim more... The difference in dificulty is also a huge plus for Dark Souls, Skyrim often felt like pushing the win button... and if you missed pushing it again... so Skyrim plays like: "If you mess up you won't win" while Dark Souls plays like: "If you mess up you are fucked, if you don't do the right stuff you won't win" though Dark Souls AI programming and aggro reseting zones made the game a bit too easy occasionally (you could snipe a lot of enemies without aggroing them :/)

sorry I think the Souls games are only mediocre to good, but nowhere near great.
Skyrim on the other hand is Game of the Gen material.

Neither. Demon's Souls is better.

Between the two... Skyrim is better.

Skyrim is game of the gen material due to its lore, size, and options of gameplay style. But what about the actual substance of the game? Did you have fun actually grinding through dungeons? Were dragon fights fun after realizing that they're the same as any other enemy, just larger and could fly away?

Dark Souls imo.

I like Dark Souls but I am done after one play through. It's just not as great as Demon Souls.

I guess the feeling, the atmosphere, the fear in Demon's Souls is unique... Dark Souls didn't come close to that.

Hmm, I haven't played Dark Souls yet but I do have Demon's Souls. Love it. Skyrim is way too shallow on many points. Especially the combat is pretty mindless and not much has happened since Morrowind, not to mention Oblivion. Bows are overpowered but so are melee weapons with a decent set of armor equipped; get close - annhilate - heal the fraction of the HP bad you recieved in damage. There's no flesh on the bone, so to speak.
Animations and characters are still robotic and unfeeling along with dialog and I didn't care for a single individual. When the smith in riverwood was killed, the only thing I could think was; "Damn, I lost a vendor to pawn my shit on."

The main story is fairly poor and filled with cliches, which is to be expected, this is Bethesda after all. And why take away Athletics and Acrobatics? You can still jump onto/into items, ledges and other things to play coward in combat, it just takes more button mashing, overall it adds nothing to the game to take these skills away. Or any of the other skills for that matter.

Then there's the new constellation and perk system, this is what truly makes all characters overpowered and what was designed to create characters with uniqueness has become an efective tool to become a jack of all trades. My character was an amazing stealth killer with a bow, pickpocket and lockpick master, speechcraft, crafting, brewing and enchanting genius, powerful melee master and powerful mage and healer all rolled up into one. What's wrong with defining slight outlines and borders of an archetype from the beginning? Why can you change specialties with click of a button? Does this make any sense in any roleplaying game? Not to me.

No, the Elder Scrolls series is actioning (!) its way into obscurity along with other RPG's and caters mostly to players who simply want to have their cake and eat it too. It can still get worse, and it will.
The saving grace is modding but a full priced game with a massive budget shouldn't be dependent on user created content to become meaningful to a lot of players.

That's my two cents anyway, I fully intend to make a thread called "Why Skyrim is not a great game" some time in the near future, no game has let me down more this gen.

Hmm, I'm still in the beginning I suppose; although the graphics suck compared to PC Skyrim/BF3 lol, IMO the atmosphere and feeling is still there. Was Dark Souls (assuming you finished it) easier? Worse boss fights? or?