Is Doom 3 the most underrated entry?

It seems doom 3 is the black sheep of the IP. It's done some things very well like the sound design and artstyle. It is really a very great artstyle. It has a large campaign consisting of over 20 levels which compared to today is pretty lacking in a lot of single player FPS games. I also like the way they added in elements from half-life and system shock but it actually still feels like a Doom sequel or a recontextualization of it.

As someone who likes Doom 3 and played it a lot back in the Xbox days, I still feel a bit "meh" on the game. I haven't actually played it in 2-3 years or longer and haven't really felt like going back to it. It's a good game but feels like it was never a good Doom game. Being a canon reboot didn't help, as people expected a sequel from the title. There's so much changed it could have been a new franchise and few of the monsters look like their old selves- the imp lacks spikes despite being the closest, the expansion gave us classic lost souls and the cacodemon looks more like an octabrain because of the weird tentacles. The spider mastermind & arachnotron were cut in favor of some spider being with a giant womb. Little else really evokes the classics, even the UAC logo was changed.

The game also dragged on with a lot of cutscenes and a voice barking in your ear a lot, and the PDAs really just slowed things down in a bad way- sure it was an interesting variation of key cards to use them as security clearance upgrades but fumbling through text or even having to wait out an audio log slowed gameplay down(Timesplitters Future Perfect took a big jab at the audio logs an dhow useless most were). Engine & hardware limitations also reduced monster fights to 1-3 at a time in many cases because the game couldn't do a 10+ monster fight. Getting to the topic of level design, "real world" translated to some boring, repetitive stuff- it reminds me of how bland Quake could be. I'm looking at either a poorly-lit research base, caves or hell. The flashlight was less fun that it should have been. A lot of the little extra touches here and there that you can find with some exploration are nice on their own, but feel like a distraction from the main game rather than a part of it.

The BFG edition probably also did little to help keep the game relevant, the massive bump in system requirements for some minimal new content wasn't really needed and the new content was probably overshadowed by the game just being a slightly polished up reissue of a game most of us had. But at least the RoE expansion was massive enough to feel like a full new game that served as a proper sequel and was a bit more of a fast-paced shooter with more variety in the levels and some other extras. It's on the same level of a sequel that Doom II was.

I also feel Bethesda/Zenimax really didn't much care to deal with it after the acquisition, it's got a re-release but little real fanfare otherwise, and the new canon reboot lifts some elements but otherwise ignores it. They're not focused on it outside of selling it for some extra cash and are otherwise content to let it be on the back burner while they push their own new retail games.

Yes, Doom 3 is the most underrated entry. It has it's unique artistic vision. It doesn't try to mimic the original game from 1993 in every aspect. That's why many players don't like it, because they just want a fancy rehash of the original Doom.

It's a great survival horror game... but Doom wasn't survival horror.

If anything that Final Doom episode with all the chain gunners is the black sheep no one likes due to... chaingunners. Unless you want a main game, then yes it would be Doom 3... but if you want unreleased black sheep, Call of Doomy would be so black sheep they scrapped it.

D3 is still very much alive in memory, has new re-released, and is remembered as a technical masterpiece, so is it underrated? I'd say it's getting more appreciated with time, and to the point of being overrated.

It's because the only area in which it is not praised is gameplay, and frankly, what's there to praise? Yes, it's a long game that took tons of effort to make, it's brilliant tech-wise, but that doesn't make it fun.

Weapons are weak, levels are repetitive and usually with no room to explore, combat situations are nothing really special because they don't mix enemies, that's curious about it. You don't have a zombieguy, a pinky and two cacos in one room, it's always: now you fight up to 3 zombieguys, now one revenant, now one imp... The fact these are series of small encounters instead of big and complex situations makes the game feel boring, you don't have to find new ways of winning, simply choose one of the tactics that worked 100x before.

Anyway, Doom 3 isn't underrated, surprisingly. It's seen exactly as what it is - a stunningly beautiful slightly-above-mediocre game.

Honestly I enjoyed Quake 4 more than Doom 3.