Theres not enough bad things I can say about Doom 3.
I found a handful of negative reviews on Gamespot. Had to trudge through about 10,000 positive reviews to find them. Interestingly enough, the folks giving it low ratings were considerably better writers than those giving it praise.
The biggest flaw is the lack of genuine action, up until the very last level.
Its the exact same simple scripted event the entire time. You walk down a hall, a secret hatch opens behind you, a monster pops out, you engage in lackluster combat.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
I didnt mind the simple AI in Doom because the shooting action was so intense. With Doom 3 it was almost always one at a time with enemies who showed almost no visible damage until they died.
The only thing to look forward to was the chance for a cool cutscene with a new monster.
The PDA's with audio and video did NOT make me forget I was playing a very uninteresting game, and manually entering codes for lockers got to be very tedious.
The graphics were good but the horrid art direction would make sure you never knew that, except in the tiny handful of areas at the games start where you could actually see something.
Along those lines: the crummy flashlight did not make the game spooky or scary or mysterious, it made it annoying. The duct tape mod doesnt count. I got sick of the game itself long before any decent mods finally came out. And again, it doesnt make sense that such an advanced martian station would only have power for exactly what you need at the time you happen to walk by. Lights always flicker and die just when you need them. Computers and doors are the same way.
I am still amazed that folks can criticize Call of Duty 4 for heavy scripting (which featured high-quality, cinema style action) and think Doom 3 is still so fucking great.
I think the only real reason for Doom 3's sucess is years of hype, followed by a small boost in the PC Gaming industries graphic quality.
If you disable bump-mapping the game looks like complete dog ass, meaning use of bump mapping on every single object was the only really special feature of the Doom 3 engine and game.
If it had come out from another company it would happen been labeled boring and repetative and unworthy of a second glance.
I'll be back later to review Quake 4 and Prey.