As said above by many people, weapon itself isn't the problem.
A burster enter in a PvP/PvE fight and shoot the hell out (also hitting multiple enemies).
A sniper shoot from distance, avoid fight, and take advantage of range and crits (also instadeath).
A melee should:
1) if not adjacent, he have to spot the enemy first, since 90% of times they have 1 PER and horrible FoV, using those points for pump up END, LCK, AGI
2) even if he spot him, he have to reach him. But at this point he usually shoot you x3 and you are already dead.
3) even if you manage to reach him with some kind of miracle, you are not able to 1-shot him almost for sure. Therefore you came in the hex next to a burster for hit him... guess what happens in his turn?
Melee as they are now (as they always were in FOnline?) are not comparable and not competitive as they are in the other Fallout games. Many boost and improvement have been made, but it's still not enough.
We need more durability and/or speed and/or sight.