I’d argue 4 is actually better than 3, just not in any way that actually makes it worth playing. 4 is a mediocre S.T.A.L.K.E.R. like, 3 is hot garbage.
The steam reviews aren’t accurate. The review timeline of steam shows suspiciously low negative reviews during release, a disastrous release with game breaking bugs and a strong backlash against the horrible monetization systems, to say nothing of the shitstorm that bethesda caused outside of the game itself. Iirc that was also a point in time that steam made a big deal out of hiding negative reviews for corpos under the guise of fighting review bombing.
Also it’s still at 50 on metacritic.
the writing isn’t that much better in 3, the gameplay loop in 4 is vastly improved over 3, however.