What if they took Alucard out of Castlevania, put him in a carnival, let the player control him as he played games, and made that the next entry in the Castlevania series... and it sold really well?

Fallout 3 having commercial success means that the Fallout franchise would never be the same again, that's why Fallout fans are so worried.

Fallout 1 and 2 were secondary projects of Black Isle, had no advertisement, yet it sold far more than everyone expected.

A huge success in this case would entail more of the same from Oblivion makers Bethesda, which is what Fallout fans DON'T want! They have a bad case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", trouble is; Fallout fans think it is in fact, broke...
I like Oblivion myself, but I truly loved Morrowind which actually paved way in the genre, unlike the sequel. A lot of nifty things were promised in Oblivion but all we got was a somewhat broken experience with shallow content and not a speck of gameplay to offer (the magnificent AI they boasted about was just one thing that went missing during development).

I for one hope Fallout 3 gets the mediocre reception, commercially and critically, that it probably deserves and that BS (an unfortunate set of initials to be sure) rid themselves of the license for the IP.

The exact same thing is happening to the Fallout series that happened to the Final Fantasy series when FFVII came out in 1997.

They are removing humor because Peter Hines and none of the Bethesda devs have any.  Also the many quotes from Peter Hines and several previews have shown that Bethesda is only capable of low teir slapstick humour.

The problem with Bethesda is they can make a FPS hack'n'slash (or 3rd person shooter) and throw in some arbitrary character stats and their game get applauded for inovating the RPG genre.  The only problem is the stats in Bethesda's games are useless, and the way Fallout 3 is looking, there is no reason for having stats at all because they are making a 3rd person shooter.

Gamers and game site reviewers aren't on the same train of thought, are they?

For those hyping this game, I offer you 6 words: fear the pig riding a rocket.

It's not even close to the same thing.  FFVI went from a JRPG with text filled cut-scenes, and FFVII was a JRPG with CGI cut-scenes.  Fallout is going from a WRPG character driven story line with very mature overtones to a 3rd person shooter.

Not even close to the same thing.

Sometimes, but there are also many cases of critically acclaimed games bombing commercially and vice versa. I think this title will get fair reviews seeing as how the gaming journalists have come to love and respect Bethesda, kinda like the incredibly overrated GTA IV. Commercially, I'm very uncertain about this game but I do tend to believe it won't do superbly; most Fallout fans are not very fond of the new concept (s) from BS and new, potential fans don't really have any experience with it and thus little reason to buy it unless Bethesda are successfull in something many try and fail at; rebooting a franchise with good results.

I'll hold off complete judgement till the game arrives and I get to play it myself, Bethesda are quite capable if they set their minds to it so they'll recieve the benefit of the doubt from me (and probably a few others) for now even though I grow more sceptic by the day in regards to this project.

@mummelman, but there are many cases where the description of Fallout 3 (by devs, Peter Hines and gaming journalists) can be summed up in one short sentence "It's basically Oblivion, but with guns."