can't say i agree. the story was decent enough to me. the gameplay was a little off. i rather the ut99/ut2k4/3 weapons than the ones in the game. plus the guy moved as slow as the master chief from halo (which is very slow). what i definitely did not like about the story was the lack of options for an ending. but eh i can see why you'd say terrible story.

Even though I just bought Unreal Tournament 2004 and this is my first time play and Unreal game (Except a few games I played this year. Fallout 3 anyone?), must we remember this game's story is about killing each other...over and over again?

they repeat it in every unreal episode : the strongest survive yeah then why do we have 4 difficulty settings =) . Theres no such thing as the easy strongest and the hardcore strongest me thinks.
I agree that the guy really is a slug. I remember even having time to smoke duing this game.
Thats why serious sam , L4D , CSS , are very ehalthy games ;)

People here are talking about Unreal 2, not UT2004.
I enjoyed the story and the dialogues actually. The slowliness was a bit of a put off indeed. The weapons were fun to me. The plot twist felt very silly but the ending after it made sense. But I do agree that some different ending options would have added greatly.

I liked the game very much. Game play was good enough to the point that it didn't bother me. The story was a disappointment imo. The first Unreal game was all about the skaarj. Yet in Unreal 2 there was a surprisingly low number of them. I loved the level design on the last few missions though, and the assault rifle in the game I though was beyond cool!