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I've always enjoyed the Unreal franchise mods and TCs. Having started with modding "Duke" (limited to 2.5-D/sprites) it was great to have real 3-D in UT to mess with.

Epic has always supported modding on UT - and even has their "Make something Unreal" contest. A lot of great and creative mods came out of this like: "Red Orchestra" (WWII); "Tactical Operations," "Neotokyo," "Frag Ops," & "Strike Force" (contemporary weapons); and "AirBuccaneers" (a steam-punk, hot-air balloons and cannons mod!)

However, I feel like the "golden age" of UT mods has passed, back with UT-2004. There was a long hiatus before UT-3 came out, and a lot of gamers and modders moved on, and there was also the steeper learning curve to the UT-3 editor.

The author really should have done more research for this article. Epic games is, typically, not one of the overly protective companies desperately trying to nail down every fan with an idea in the name of Intellectual Property enforcement. The event cited (C&D over a gift doll) was actually done in error and was not sent by Epic themselves but rather their trigger-happy crack legal team. Mark Rein (PR dude) later explained the incident as an accident and publicly apologized for it.

Typically, Epic has been more in stride with Valve in that they actively encourage people to mess with their games in not-for profit ways. They have also released free SDK's and source code for their engines. They've held contests (with cash prizes, noless) in order to cultivate talent and often recruit employees from the community. They've even taken a mod to retail status (Tactical Ops) just like Valve did with Counter Strike. They've also helped to pioneer the feature of community made mods and maps being offered on consoles.

On the whole, Epic is one of the least "evil" gaming companies on the planet right now. And while they're not immune to making mistakes, I personally don't believe they deserve to be unfairly placed on the wrong side of this particular fence.

Obligatory MSU link:
$1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Contest