>>718549712
It's not just the lack of challenge, it's also the complete lack of stakes. There is no reason to engage or care about the combat or platforming. You fall, you are mildly inconvenienced for a few seconds. You hit a hazard or facetank an enemy, you lose a tiny bit of health you will soon recover anyways.

Just about the only thing that actually matters is bossfights (about 2% of the game) and meticulously checking every tile of every room.

I just don't like Super Metroid's priorities, but I guess if you're a huge tile scanning fan, then you will.

For New Vegas, it's just far and away the best or close to it in so many categories

Serviceable gameplay
Decent build options and RPG mechanics
Top-notch quests
Top-notch factions
Top-notch interweaving of plot threads and gameplay paths
Top-notch writing
Top-notch story
Top-notch characters
Top-notch world design
Top-notch exploration
Top-notch interactivity

It's an all-time classic. Plus I've always enjoyed the gamebryo shenanigans, and the shortcoming were always writing, quests, characters, worldbuilding and player agency, and New Vegas massively inproves all of those.