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This will change. Crytek (those guys who did FarCry & Crysis) has already announced their first AAA F2P.

And CryEngine already supports DX9.

http://www.crytek.com/technology/index.php?sx=eng2

According to Crytek, Crysis will be supported on Windows XP...
http://www.crytek.com/games/index.php?px=xsis

I'd also mention Far Cry, which is visually stunning and neither dark nor claustrophobic like Doom 3 and its likely sequel Quake 4. More screenshots here.

I think we can all now admit that id Software screwed this up. Or almost screwed this up, if you are a fan.

The gameplay in the game is far from perfect, a lot of the hype was unfounded. The game also does not have revolutionary graphics, the art direction and animation are great, but things as basic as walls look worse than in Far Cry or even Painkiller. (Compare these two, for instance: 1, 2).

The xBox version is still incomplete, the PC version took 4 years to develop, much longer than they expected, the id probably had some internal problems (that Carmack refers to as "maturing of the team"). While all that is not as bad as the HL2 or DNF story, it's far from perfect, very far. The fact that Crytek managed to pull off being the first with a next-gen shooter is a strong blow to Valve and id.

Now id talks about licensing the engine and it's great, I am sure they will sell quite a few copies, but if you were shopping for a modern engine today, Unreal 3 looks much better. Doom 3 engine was great in 2001, when it was first shown at MacWorld - I don't see a significant improvement in quality since then. Games on Unreal 3 engine are expected in early 2006 (less than two years from now) and there are many companies doing them, so at least some of them are likely to do it on time. Doom 3 games will come after than (since they haven't started yet) and I don't think a 5-year old engine will have a change next to U3 without major additional improvements.

I wouldn't call Doom 3 a failure for id, but it's not a big success either. It's nice that they finally chose to sell the movie rights, that will make them some good money. But I hope they call really get the team together and do better for their next game, otherwise the IP they are planning to build will not be worth much. And if the team can't build games on John's engines quickly enough, the title of game engine god will soon go to Tim Sweeney (or something like that).

One game I am buying as soon as it's released, is Far Cry, they're using CryTek's CryEngine, which also has a realtime in-game-editor.
If you haven't already tried far cry (single player demo), I suggest you read Boomtown's review, and download it - no time to waste! Hurry! :)

One game I am buying as soon as it's released, is Far Cry, they're using CryTek's CryEngine, which also has a realtime in-game-editor.
If you haven't already tried far cry (single player demo), I suggest you read Boomtown's review, and download it - no time to waste! Hurry! :)