Entomology and hunter perks wouldn't make a dent against these bugs, if you could even bother to get that far.
The game suffers from Fallout 3's blandness of the wasteland, though to be fair, it is a desert, and deserts aren't renowned for jaw-dropping beauty. The game also feels more difficult than it's predecessor, with the ability to get good weapons highly restricted at the start (no unique hunting rifle at level 3 that will be your mainstay for most of the game this time around), which wouldn't be so bad except very few moments pass in the desert where something isn't trying to end your life. The combat is the same as Fallout 3, though most weapons now seem to have a huge cost in AP in VATS mode, which decreases the viability of that playstyle. If you aren't a big first-person shooter player, get ready for some practice. The weakness of the weapons seems to make the fights more dragged out and annoying than they were in fallout 3, which diminishes the experience of combat.
The locales are nice enough, but as with fallout 3 I couldn't get any satisfaction from what I did. Assist with potentially curing the nightkin? Nothing, not even a smile. Idolized with NCR? Don't care. Blew off Caesar's head in front of his praetorian guard? Good fight, but meh, hope the old codger's got some good loot. The only thing that did bring a smile to my face was wiping out the boomers, firing their artillery like that at me, say hello to my little friend. Shame that really doesn't seem to count for anything. The characters are equally forgettable, killing the person who left you for dead, meh, his gun was worth a bit of change, thanks I guess. Though it seems to be getting closer to the weirdness of the original fallout it still just hasn't gotten there. Speaking of getting there, the endless trekking around the desert is a real buzzkill. With almost everything out there wanting to kill you and your character running at a pace a morbidly obese person could overtake, you end up just wanting to hit the marker so you can fast travel and never, never have to do that again. It's not so much a wonderful gran turismo through a paradise as it's a road trip on an old mule with the family from hell. Your companions, while more lively than the ones in Fallout 3, still really don't serve much purpose beyond pack mules in the game, and pack mules that love getting themselves knocked unconscious or killed far too often. They do have their own side-quests now, even though the game tends to make you jump through some silly hoops to get them, it still doesn't make them any more interesting or likeable, and Boone, swear to god, one more whine about punishment and my plasma rifle's going to say hello to you. Then again, that'd just knock him unconscious. Damn. It.
The real game killer comes from the bugs. Having to play roulette every time I attempt to load the game to have even the damn launcher work would be bearable if it opened up to gaming goodness. However, the entire game suffers from enemies getting stuck on things, slipping under ground, having only a bit of their body sticking out of the ground, bullets firing through what are supposed to be stripped-out husks of cars getting stopped and leaving a mark like it was concrete instead, unable to activate or use quest items, ways that are/should be ways to complete the quests not working resulting in quests unable to be completed, allies forgetting you ARE a friend (without provocation), numerous crashes and extended loading times make the game a grind to get through.
This is one of the few games where I doubt I'll complete it. I've just wiped out the legion in their fort, I'm guessing the big fight is about to start real soon, and... I can't bring myself to load up this game any more. I haven't bothered to explore nearly half the wasteland, don't care. Nuke New Vegas, I DON'T CARE. Yes, I can just use the console and cheat my way through the rest to make it easier, see end of last sentence. With the bugs, the boring characters and places, the boring combat, just wipe the place out. I really liked Fallout 1 and 2, however the modern reincarnations just aren't achieving anywhere near the same level of enjoyment, though they are enjoying much greater commercial success. Fallout 2 was also buggy as hell but the whackiness of it all and the characters made you keep going, even when you had to hoof it all over the place as half your car had disappeared. Fallout: New Vegas' bugs are far more intrusive and the place is nowhere near as great as the area around San Fran, and you are attacked with far greater frequency in the Mojave.
In short, the bugs and lackluster gaming, this game wasn't even worth the $40 I got it for. Nice way to twist my knife in my own heart saying that about a Fallout game. Maybe with DLCs and another upcoming "big patch" from the producers it might become better. I'll save my money until the GOTY edition is bargain priced.