As far as 76 goes, I bought it last year, only started playing it a few months ago cause it didn't like my video card (it literally blew up my previous card, don't use anything even remotely below recommended specs on that game, trust me on that) and after getting over 100 hours in it its one of those games that I can't really say with certainty how I feel about it. The world design is decent and varied enough to be interesting, the cryptids you mentioned pop up in some pretty creepy places that suit them perfectly. There is also a cult that worships the mothman that you run into. The quests are kind of iffy and i'm currently stuck on advancing the story cause theres one of those irritating combat designed robots that will hand you your ass very quickly in a room full of other bots that you have to clear out to get a particular item. Its one of the things that makes me question whether there is some serious balancing issues in some places like that. Also odd incidents like running into one of those sheepsquatches (a legendary one 10 levels above me no less) in the middle of a mountain highway that I had to get past to get to where I needed to go a few miles down the road, that led to me having to get very creative to get through and getting killed half a dozen times trying. But there are also some well made encounters - like the time I ran into a flying scorchbeast on the highway and pretty much had to run through the woods taking cover against trees and taking pot shots at it until I could hide and get away from it, which was one of the most intense experiences i've ever had in a fallout game, and another at an out of the way inn that will rent you a room while acting a bit off, and it turns out there are cannibals in the basement that will try to ambush you in your bed when you try to sleep. But those decent encounters are shall we say, few and far between. The changing weather is nice, the fact npcs will fly around in BOS aircraft and attack raiders or mutant camps is interesting and adds some life to the game that NV and 3 lacked. The biggest problem for me has been keeping enough ammo on hand to do anything and getting decent enough weapons to be able to survive, which only gets harder as you level up. Hell i'm using a pistol 20+ levels below me because its the only decent weapon i've got that doesn't break after 5 shots. Which brings up another problem - equipment maintenance. I have seen weapons that you can fire maybe 10 times or less before they just break and become unusable. and I don't mean high end stuff either, just normal pistols, rifles and stuff like that. Energy weapons are famous for it as well. and power armor you can oddly enough find all over the place at times, but it requires so many power cells to use on any regular basis to be able to use it that its practically worthless. So it absolutely has its issues, some of which do drive a fair number of people away
That said, if you are interested in trying it i'd say wait until its on sale. I wouldn't pay full price for it