Are there any out there? A Star Wars total conversion mod for Skyrim would be perfect but as far as I know it doesn't exist. Anything? I already have Fallout 3/NV and technically that's post-apocalyptic fiction (sub-genre) KOTR's combat system completely ruins the game for me, so that's out Borderlands was not particularly well received by Yahtzee Croshaw and since I usually agree with him that's out too. Mass Effect is too heavily focused on shooting things behind Sir Wally McChestHigh. Open world, laser cannons, not nuked to oblivion. Anything? EDIT: OH COME ON! REALLY!? WHY WAS THIS TAKEN FROM US!?
RPGs are rare by our dark times... So Si-Fi RPG ? Dios Mio... The only RECENT IP that i can get my tired brain to remember is Mass Effect. Altrough your remark is true for Mass Effect 3 (too much shooting, not enough choices, not enough real impact on the gameflow), Mass Effect 1 and 2 are much more enjoyable from my point of view. You may want to have a look at Star Citizen, altrough i'm pretty sure you already heard of it.
Internet is soooo cruel in the morning... ;-) Fine. Looked in my game database just for you. You know how much dust there is out there ? Almost got killed by the box falling over me and a giant acari tried to bite my hand... What about XCOM : Enemy Unknown ? Well, not exactly a RPG, but almost. Or Deux Ex : Human Revolution maybe. Not yet the big laser canons, but you're a badass with a lot of nice little upgrades...
Then that's all i can do for you in the "recent" games :-( Too dangerous for me to go deeper in my game cave. I heard screams last time...
Caves of Qud is pretty awesome. It's like Fallout(real Fallout) with more mutants. It's over 1000 years after being nuked to oblivion, so it has forests and salt krakens and the conveyor belt of your tongue falling off. It's open world and has hordes of robots you can fight off alongside sentient porcupine bears. Imagine a grizzly with quills instead of fur. It's from 2010, so that's recentish. I wish they'd update it though. I couldn't find anything that wasn't post-apocalyptic, but at least it isn't a desert wasteland. EDIT: It's also free http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/showthread.php?10-Welcome-to-the-Caves-of-Qud-beta