I did say "they did so many things right", with which I was referring to this objective measure of quality. There is a good reason this game is so universally beloved, and there are good reasons why Starfield isn't.

If you want a random assortment of these "right things":

• Many, many choices that strongly impact your gameplay (Starfield has few interesting quests, most "choices" lead to the same outcomes)
• Very interesting companions that have their own well-defined personalities and perspectives (Starfield/Bethesda companions just don't have as many interesting things to say/as much cross-interaction)
• Dialogues with interesting animations (Starfield/Bethesda dialogues are pretty static, looking at you, since... Oblivion I think?)
• Interesting and detailed world design without constant repition and emptiness (Starfield is mostly empty, and mostly not unique)
• An interesting story with a few twists (Starfield feels very generic Sci-Fi to me, but your mileage may vary)
• Relatively few loading screens for a pretty big world (Starfield has constant loading screens)
• Strong replayability due to many different options (Starfield has a few interesting NG+ ideas, but generally isn't too interesting to repeat)