I'm still playing when the wife lets me, but pretty much just on the weekends. I'm at level 19 I think. Overall, I think they did a good job with this, although I wish they had left out the building part of it. I want to play Fallout, not the Sims.
There is a side quest for a vault that has remained intact, and I met a trader at the beginning of the sidequest before the vault opening, and she had a gun for sale, Spray and Pray, that shoots bullets that explode on contact. Buy this gun. It uses 10 mm ammo, which is really common, and does a ton of damage. I haven't taken on a deathclaw with it yet, but it took out one of those Chinese bears very easily.