The menus were the only real problem with UT3 and that was mostly patched up.(Minor glitches here and there but those weren't major and most of them were patched) It's still not perfect but definitely usable now.
UT3 had (and still has) a horde of other problems. The state that the game was released in didn't do it any favors. (It needed another 6 months in the oven.)
UT3 does have game play problems separate from its User Interface problems. Here are some off the top of my head:
- Vehicles feel awful compared to the UT 2004 vehicles and they lack first person view (important for flying vehicles and tanks IMHO). The addition of the Nightshade with its mine pod that cannot be destroyed was also a horrible idea. (Consequently, many people such as myself prefer UT 2004's Onslaught to UT3's Warfare.)
- You cannot set communications keybinds such as "Cover me" or "Enemy flag carrier is here (location ID tag shown)". Since console users wouldn't have buttons for that and since UT3 is in essence a console port, it never occurred to the developers to include it.
- The game play feels too fast, faster than UT99, resulting in a feeling of a lack of control of and and awareness about what's going on. It feels like the regular speed setting is UT99's 150 speed setting. The default should have been 110. It's hard to describe in words, but the feel of the game play and the fragging is inferior to that of UT99.
- The translocator still suffers from limited throws.
The user interface still has issues too and it pales in comparison to the quality and features of the UT 2004 and even the UT99 interface. It's better now that it's been patched up but it's still not very good. For example, you still need to wait to load the Main Menu (!!!). Also, you cannot seamlessly and quickly summon the server browser while you are on a server--you need to quit it first. In UT99 and UT 2004 you could summon it instantly and check out games on other servers to decide whether to stay on your current server or to move to another one. You could do all of this in just 5 seconds. In UT3 you need to leave the server, check the server browser, and then wait while UT3 reloads the map to rejoin the server.
UT3 also lacked many of the game types that the other games had--most notably UT99-style Domination, Bombing Run, Assault, and Invasion.
UT3 also had a horribly archaic file structure which made it more prohibitive for modders and mappers. I understand that some sacrifices have to be made for the Application Data folder and to be Games for Windows compliant, but as a guy who released a couple UT99 CTF maps and who played around with the UT3 Editor, it's just awful and much more complicated.
The big reason UT3 failed is just because of the type of game gamers want to play now. They aren't into arena style shooters like Quake or UT, they are into realistic looking, easy to play games like MW2.
It's impossible to say that because UT3 was a stillborn and had so many problems of its own that if your statement were false--if in fact people would like to play arena-style FPS--it would not change anything in regards to UT3. If UT3 had been a real bona-fide UT99-2 with the new vehicular game types and if it were well-polished and released in a state with few bugs then we could better evaluate the possibility that no one is interested in Arena-style FPS. I don't believe it--males are still males and they would still enjoy a competitive blood-n-gutts online multiplayer FPS cyber bloodsport experience.
The reason why Arena style FPS is not doing well is, very simply, that there aren't any worthwhile arena style FPS titles. Both UT99 and Quake III--the leading games in this genre--never received proper sequels.
If you look at UT3's launch and MW2's launch, UT3 looks like a completely flawless game by comparison, yet MW2 still sold like hotcakes. So clearly consolization isn't the reason UT3 failed, otherwise MW2 would have failed a hundred times worse. It's just not the type of game that the casual PC gamer wants to play anymore.
MW2 benefited from the success of MW1 and MW1's success was very proximate in time to the release of MW2.
In contrast, in the Unreal Tournament series, much of the fanbase was lost with the release of the UT 2003 abomination. UT 2004 is a good game in and of itself because of Onslaught but it suffered from the loss of much of the UT99 fanbase (which had no interest in UT 2004 because of UT 2003) and the fact that it's on-foot fragging (CTF) was inferior to that of UT99 and CTF was the primary game type for UT99. So, UT3's release was too far removed from UT99's release to benefit from UT99's popularity (like MW2 can MW1's) and UT 2004 was never nearly as popular as UT99.
In summary, UT3's failure to gain market share and to attract and to maintain a large online multiplayer player population is based, not on gamers' dislike of arena style FPS or even the release of competing FPS games, but rather 100% on the quality and design of UT3 itself. This is the lesson that Epic Games needs to learn and understand if it is ever to successfully revive the series with a UT4.
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