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Fallout 3 actually does such a better job at introducing you to the Enclave as a faction than Fallout 2 does, ironically enough. I'm actually glad I played Fallout 3 first before Fallout 2 because then I might find the Enclave to be more annoying or underwhelming throughout the series than the hype I felt for them at the time.

It starts right when you enter the game - The omnipresent eyebots and their mysterious propaganda, the classical music station, the Enclave patriot in Megaton, to Vertibird encounters and the dramatic Raven Rock/Eden reveal followed by the Project Purity showdown, Might all be pretty cheesy but forgivable for a game of its time and part of the nostalgic charm, or at the very least we can say we understand what role they play in the narrative.

FO2 is weird as fuck and feels slapped together with gum and duct tape. You spend most of the game tracking down the GECK from one community's plotline to the next, only for the Enclave to be thrusted upon you as a Big Bad via Deus Ex Machine toward the very end - "Oh btw your tribe just got kidnapped by those power armored dudes, got kill them all". Arrive at the Oil Rig and now it's "Oh btw we're also the government isn't that so quirky and epic".

Sounds like they should be little more than just another freaky wasteland community if it weren't for the fact they just happened to be the ones who fucked with my tribe and now they're my Big Bad due to sheer chance.... I guess. There are probably like 20 different factions who might kidnap humans for a variety of reasons, and they end up getting destroyed just for messing with the wrong MC. You don't even have any incentive to care that they are the government or what they want or what they're about.

Contrast that with FO3 once again where there's an actual correlation to the main quest - "Hey, so you know how much it sucked to fight all those Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls on the way here? Wanna help us use Project Purity to kill them all?"