I bought the Legendary Edition 2 years ago, only played for about 2 hours as I couldn't get into it. It was also my first Elder Scrolls game.
This version with the updated graphics doesn't really hit the mark for me either, not helped by the fact I played the Witcher 3 earlier this year which is superior in every way for me. Skyrim feels so empty, unimaginative, unengaging, lifeless, and small in scale. It seems you need a multitude of mods to capture the feel the developers were going for.
Maybe it's because I'm not very far in and haven't explored much, but the 'city' I've seen (Whiterun, I think, it had a Jarl who had a catlady as a guard) was nothing like a city, seemed like more of a small village, and the story is boring, the art style not very well thought out.
Runs very well on a 970 though, maxed out the graphics and have a few mods running, such as SMIM, the bug fixing, a form of SkyUI (the default interface is terrible). I might try playing it with a PS4 controller, and locking it to 30fps for a more cinematic feel to see how I like it.