Morrowind was kind of meh.
It was good and all. But combat was crappy, graphics were crappy, and the story wasn't that great. Some of the side-quests and easter-eggs were nice, though.
Morrowind's graphics were great when it came out 11 years ago. The combat is still the best in any Elderscrolls game, because the weapons actually do damage---in Oblivion and Skyrim they hit everytime but do no freaking damage, whereas in Morrowind enemies your level rarely take more than 2 or 3 shots to kill. Anyone who claims that you miss constantly in Morrowind (as so many people do) has obviously not played the game past level 10.
The writing, of course, is probably the best in any video game ever made; the 36 Lessons of Vivec is good enough to be published, being better than 99% of the fantasy that gets published.
The amount of detail in the story is incredible. Sure, the story might not be that good if you don't pay attention and just blow through it, but if you take the time to actually read all the excellently written dialogue and stories, go through the books you're given, explore everywhere the go and find interesting things, you'll discover a story and writing that is almost too good to be in a video game.
Which makes the fact that Oblivion is one of the most poorly written games I've ever played all the harder to take. In Oblivion's defence, though, at least it wasn't as pathetically written as Skyrim. I don't recall there being a single bit of interesting dialogue or writing in the whole of Skyrim.
