Fallout 3 or New Vegas?

Both are better

Absolutely get DLC. As far as which one, FO3 first. It's a good game, but NV had a lot of engine improvements, so it's hard to go back.

You should also give FO1 and FO2 a try at some point. :)

New Vegas Ultimate. Then later get the Fallout 3 GOTY and there is actually a mod which takes all the assets, story, everything and puts it into the superior New Vegas implementation of the Gamebyro engine (but you need both those games).
The mod is called Tale of Two Wastelands.

Get wasteland 2 it is what fallout 3 should have been.

Just buy both

Both! or wait for 4

Loved 3, but thought NV was a little too much of the same. I'll bet if I'd played NV first then I would have felt exactly the opposite. But since you're asking I'd say go with 3 first.

Play 3 first.

3 was great but Las Vegas was better and worth getting first.(Own them on Xbox 360 so not sure about mods but heard its amazing with mods on both games)

I also had this dilemma, I made myself play 1 and 2 first though, then bought both 3 GOTY and New Vegas Ultimate, Just finished FO3 and loved the journey so far. Excited for New Vegas! :D

fallout 3, There's just something about starting out in the vault that got me immersed in the story, which Vegas didn't do quite the same.

I preferred the far more Dynamic setting of New Vegas.

If you get both you can use A Tale of Two Wastelands to play Fallout 3 in the updated New Vegas engine. Get all the DLC too. It's not as important for FO3, but for FNV a lot of mods require you to have them all.

I liked them both, but for different reasons, but Fallout New Vegas is the better one IMO. Fallout 3 has the better setting (capitol wasteland), but New Vegas has the better quests and writing. Here's my short review of each:

Fallout 3's story is linear; you are always forced down the same path. There are two factions in the game, but you have no choice in which one you can side with. If you've played the original Fallout games, there are a ton of little things that will drive you crazy, like the hunting rifle using .32 cal pistol ammo. The game took the karma system from the first two games and made it a major part of the game. Certain companions will only join you if you have good, neutral or evil karma. The companions are boring and basically pack mules. The ending only differs slightly based on your karma level at the end. The game isn't very well balanced. Although its default level cap is lower compared to New Vegas (20 vs 30), you gain way too many skill points, plus the abundance of skill books and the bobble heads means you could max out all your skills before hitting the level cap. This lead to a bug where you get stuck in the level up menu because you can't close it until you spend your skill points.

DLC:

• Operation Anchorage: It's a linear and not much story going on. It's worth playing once, and if you're into power armor it gives you earlier access to power armor training, which you won't get until half way through the main quest.
• The Pitt: My favorite DLC of both 3D Fallouts. I can't really say why I like it without spoiling it though.
• Broken Steel: It's pretty much an essential DLC. The vanilla game ends after the main quest, but with Broken Steel it lets you continue. The story isn't all that great. It extends the level cap to 30, which makes it even more likely that you'll max out your skills before hitting the level cap.
• Point Lookout: It adds a new, fairly large area to explore as well as new higher leveled enemies that will also appear in the main game. They're quite bullet the sponges too. The story, well it's forgettable, because I've forgotten it. I remember parts of it, but honestly I've forgotten what the main story was all about.
• Mothership Zeta: A lot of people don't like this one, but I do. You get abducted by aliens and held captive on their ship. You must escape with the help of other captives, takeover the ship and find a way home.

New Vegas is much more true to the originals, probably because it was done by Obsidian, which is made up of many of the old Black Isle people that worked on the first two and the original Fallout 3 that got canceled. Although the Mojave Wasteland isn't as nice of a setting as Fallout 3's Capitol Wasteland, it feels more real. The main quest isn't forced on you right at the start, but instead your given a starting quest that puts you on the path to discovering it as you explore. Karma is still there, but it works like it did in the original games in that some people will react different to you if your karma is good or evil. There are four factions in Fallout New Vegas as well as several minor factions, and you can chose which ones to side with. The reputation system returns with New Vegas. Each faction and settlement tracks your reputation separately. If you help one faction/settlement, they'll react different depending on how well you're liked, while another faction/settlement may hate you. The dialog is so much better in New Vegas. Companions aren't just boring pack mules. Each one has their own quest that unfolds as they travel with you. The vanilla game is much better balanced than FO3. Although it has a higher level cap of 30, you get less skill points, so you won't be able to max everything out. Each of the main DLC bumps the level cap up by 5, which throws off the balance of the game. I recommend a balance mod to fix that.

DLC:

• Dead Money: My second favorite of the 3D Fallout DLC, for some of the same reasons I liked The Pitt.
• Honest Hearts: It's a new, but small, open world. The story is and the world are OK, but nothing special. It gets a bit tedious as you end up having to run back and forth from one end to the other a lot It adds new weapons, which are nice, but they only appear in the DLC unless you use mods to add the to the base game.
• Old World Blues: Everyone raves about this one, but I wasn't too crazy about it. It was quite amusing at first, but grew old quick. After a while I just wanted to finish it so I could go back to the wasteland. Like Honest Hears, there is a lot of running back and forth, and its new weapons only appear in the DLC.
• Lonesome Road: I hated it. It's a very linear map, but I actually liked the map. What I hated was that after giving you a blank slate to make up your own character back story in the beginning of the game, this DLC comes along and forces one on you.
• Gun Runners' Arsenal: It just adds a bunch of new guns, ammunition recipes and mods to buy from the gun runners. It's odd because no one else in the entire wasteland uses them. Some of the guns are duplicates of vanilla guns that weren't originally modable or have different mods. For example, the Anti-materiel rifle in the vanilla game does not have mods. GRA adds a new Anti-materiel rifle which supports mods, but the mods aren't compatible with the non GRA version. There is a mod that integrates the GRA and other DLC weapons throughout the game and fixes the mods to work on both versions.
• Courier's Stash: It just adds all the pre-order DLC items to the game. It's a bit cheaty to start the game with four sets of armor, four weapons, a bunch of ammo and other items that you can sell for a small fortune right at the start of the game. Unless you're using anther mod that requires this, I recommend disabling it or using a mod to re-distribute them throughout the wasteland.

I have played Fallout 3 twice. My first play through I was good. My second play through I went for neutral and a speech based character because there is a perk that boosts your speech skill if you have neutral karma. Playing as a neutral character felt evil enough that I didn't feel the need to go through it again as an evil character.

I have played New Vegas twice also. I've done two of the four endings. With the Fallout 4 hype I've got the itch to play again.

I cant chose :D Both are good

both are good, but new vegas resembles more the old fallout 2 gameplay and humor.
i liked the maps in fo3 more though.

By Fallout 3 first now, when you finish him - will be next sale, and you get NewVegas.
F3 better finish first.)

New Vegas, objectively.

i would also go with 3 first, just something about it....

New Vegas does pretty much everything better than Fallout 3.

BOTH.

well i would say it depends
if youre getting the games with all dlc's then it doesnt matter.
both games are awesome, personally i like NV a little bit more.
if youre not getting the games with dlcs then i would definitely rank NV>FO3

"I know this is asked all the fucking time but all the threads on here are really old."
How is that relevent? The games have never changed since the other threads.

but all the old threads are still relevant, so yeah...

Fallout 4