Doom3 was supposed to scare, Half-Life2 did a better job scaring me than Doom3.
Amen. Revenholme and the mines scared the crap out of me. Those poison headcrabs are VICIOUS.
Having said that, Doom 3 does have one serious advantage on the atmosphere stakes - the light. Ravenholme was dark and claustrophobic (not to mention full of screaming insane zombie berserkers), but at least you could have your light on and fight at the same time. Doom 3 took the either/or approach, - you could see, or you could shoot. God help you if you found yourself going toe-to-toe with a triad of imps in the dark, because beating them to death with the torch is impossible, and you can't see where they are to shoot them.
I hate that, but my god does it make the actual battles in the dark terrifying.
Ravenholme was scary because it was full of shadows and tough, strong monsters. But at least you could SEE the monsters to shoot them. Doom 3 was terrifying because half the time you were firing blind with guns that barely did the job.
Sure, I'd have preferred some more powerful weaponry in Doom 3. The shotgun REALLY sucked ass, for example. But this is a minor niggle in a technically excellent game.
Both games have merits, I think. Doom 3 is slightly the inferior of the two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it sucks. It's a solid and powerful FPS in its own right. The only game of 2004 that it really compares unfavourably to is HL2.
It does have one MAJOR advantage, however - no Steam. Fuck you, valve.
