So, how do I want to play, where I can honestly answer the basic question of the OP with "Yes."?
I mentioned this in another thread, quite a while back, but I want to fire up the game, look at the clock and realize that it's 4 AM, and I have to be up in 2 hours. If this game can do that, it's going to be wildly successful, and in the early days of EA, it was doing that, to a lesser degree, since TB combat leads to time to actually look at the clock while you're waiting for your turn(s) to come up. I have been engaged, and I have enjoyed it. That is all I'm looking for.
I thought about this yesterday, when I fired up Steam to play FO 4 for a bit and saw that I had over 1200 hours in it. While FO 4 isn't the worst game I've ever installed, by a large margin, it's not the best game I've ever played either. The thing is, I can't put my finger on exactly how I got there. I had over 280 hours on Skyrim, hell, I had over 60 hours in Sword Coast Legends, a game which isn't all that great, by most metrics. These are the PC numbers, I have both Skyrim and FO4 on XBox too, and have lots of time in those as well. I don't spend a lot of time with the EA, mostly just around patches, to see what's new, because of the numbers listed here. I don't want to be burnt out on the game before it ever releases, so I deliberately limit my time. I want the experience to be as fresh as possible when the game releases.
TL;DR? The game has kept me engaged in it when I play. I wasn't, and am not looking for an edition number, I'm looking for a story that can pull me to the end, sometimes kicking and screaming because I need to be asleep instead. There are hints of that here, so yes, I can play the game the way I want to, because at the end of the day, just like with every other game I play, I'm not looking for all that much, get me out of my own head, and let me lose myself in the world.
