Unreal 2: The Awakening has you play as John Dalton, an ex-marine who is tasked with collecting pieces of an ancient alien artifact. The crew of his ship includes Aida, a pro-chess player and a tactical genus, Ne'Ban, a hexcore prince and a very good pilot and Isaak Borisov, a skilled technician who still can't get over a sense of guilt over a certain mistake he's made once.
In other words, yes, that's the game. Your turn. :-)
Themken: I had dismissed this game as not relevant to me but all these hints piqued my interest. I might get the single-player games too after all as the story sounds interesting when Sanjuro retells it.
Well, to be fair, the game is way more action-oriented than plot-oriented, but it certainly has more of a story (told through the game events, not implied or given through some text) than Unreal Tournament or Unreal 1. There are dialogues, stuff happens before your eyes, you even get to choose what you say a couple of times. The story and the way it's told is kinda decent, if you don't expect too much from it (the narrative is certainly no Half-Life level or somesuch). Near the end (right before the final mission) there's a twist (remember that hint about servants? :-) ) and a couple of big events that add to the dramatic atmosphere.
But I'd say setting people on fire or shooting them with spider gun (which shoots actual small spiders that crawl all over your opponents) to make them freak out and randomly run in circles screaming is probably more memorable. :-)
Oh, and keep in mind, I do have that trickster part of my personality which greatly enjoys surprising people, making them see things in new light, sometimes leading them to believe something and, well, tricking them (see the tone in which I described StarCraft on my previous round - I tried to make it sound almost like a game from F.E.A.R. or Resident Evil series). :-P