Mixed feelings concerning what the OP said, I agree, and disagree as well.
I liked Quake 4 more than DOOM 3, and I never really liked DOOM 3's first half... BUT I REALLY liked the last levels in DOOM 3 when you actually get in "Hell", THOSE small sections specifically made me realize how awesome it would have been if most of the game would have taken place in similar hellish environments, my issue with most of DOOM 3 was the darkness (mostly used to show off the lightning effects and the shadows effects which were new back then for gaming in general, but added little it terms of actual game-play and made it annoying to switch between the flashlight and the guns) and the boring indoor environments (that is until it does change a bit, but by that point the game is almost finished), otherwise it's "alright".
I think that RAGE has a lot of potential, it seems to be semi-open world, linear enough to keep the main plot going on a solid base, but open-world enough to have a minimum sense of exploration going and obviously big enough to race around with the vehicles (which I assume will mostly be used by the players for mere transportation purposes rather than actually trying to "compete" with wastelanders in some boring races unless the prices if there's any for being the winner make them interesting and worth it). From what was shown RAGE does NOT seem to be a "corridor" shooter, there WILL be indoor levels of course, underground bunkers or abandoned buildings in the wasteland perhaps similar to how it was in Fallout 3, otherwise it seems to be a mixture of both outdoor exploration/racing AND of course some indoor action.
Overall I am quite interested by RAGE and like any recent games that I'm interested about I'll just wait around half a month or so after its release to see the general consensus around, check some media, see how the "final" version's stability goes, check the official forums, look at the tech support section, seeing what are the acknowledged issues, then I'll make my mind about it. I'm doing just that right now for Duke Nukem Forever, I'm holding myself and it's really hard to, but I do not want to buy it right away, I MUST resist! By anyway, RAGE looks good enough so far and I hope that DOOM 4 will make me forget DOOM 3 and not repeat most of its mistakes.