I loved the first Borderlands, I even got so paranoid about my 360 save getting corrupted I routinely backed it up on a thumb drive (you're limited to 1 save slot per character, at least on the 360, so if the save gets corrupted you're screwed and could lose hundreds of hours)....only game I've ever bothered to do that with. I'm looking forward to Borderlands 2, but I bought the original Borderlands when it was first released and there were a lot of things they had to patch later and online was kind of a mess, so I'll probably wait until it drops to about $40, gets a patch or 4, and the online community more or less settles down a little bit. Though if modded equipment finds it's way into Borderlands 2 multiplayer I will be severely disappointed.
For those that haven't played the original: there's not much of a story. It's better to think of it as a first person dungeon crawler with guns. Haha what part of that sentence is there not to love though? Story doesn't always equal depth. There's a ton of depth through character builds and combat strategies hidden underneath a shallow story. And what's there is often times intentionally shallow and/or funny. It doesn't take itself seriously in the story-telling department so neither should you.
Unfortunately, modded equipment being rampant in the online game makes playing online with anyone you don't know and trust an exercise in frustration, but playing single player shouldn't be anything new to Skyrim folk. And if you really want, the borderlands gearbox forums are still somewhat active and you can usually find a trustworthy playing partner.
