There's lots of games that do that though. The problem is that other games give you more of a reason to do what you do. Make you care
I think the problem with Skyrim wasn't that the overall story was bad, it just fell flat in the 3rd act. It started great, progressed superbly through several main missions, but just seemed to peter out near the end...which is like every Miyazake film that I have ever seen, basically.
Not just the story, but the world didn't really evolve in any meaningful way to what you are doing, on top of overpowering your character so early on, so easily, the urgency and direness of whatever situation you had to deal with never lasted long enough to carry that story in the 3rd act.
However, the faction missions were so amazing, some of them the best content in any RPG that I ever played, it made up for that...but at the same time--none of those mattered in the end. You could be the master of all houses, be everything, everyone feared you and everyone still thought you were a peasant. ...not much to it.
Still the best time I've ever had exploring a game world, though.