I was able to get Unreal Gold and Unreal 2 in my library before they were removed. In my estimation, Unreal Gold is one of the best games ever made in the history of gaming.

6 of 5 must play.
5 of 5 great story great gameplay.
4 of 5 great story average gameplay.
3 of 5 average story average gameplay.
2 of 5 play only if it's your favorite genre.
1 of 5 play if you have nothing better to do.
0 of 5 play if you're a masochist.
-1 of 5 avoid.

Unreal Gold score is 6 of 5.
Unreal 2 score is 3 of 5.

The original Unreal is probably my favourite FPS, so for me personally it's one of the best games. It's probably not for everyone though. I really appreciate exploration and the worldbuilding. Some of the locations are truly wonderful.

Pretty much what I would say as well.

Too bad this shiny gem has been so underappreciated all these years. There's no shortage of people on the Internet singing praise to Half-Life, Quake and Doom, while hardly any casual player seems to know as little as the fact that Unreal and Unreal Tournament are actually two different games.

Unreal is basically the Quake formula taken up a level. With all respect to Quake, Unreal is much better in almost everything:
- Its weapons are more interesting and diverse;
- Its AI is more advanced;
- Its environments make sense - a rich coherent beautiful world to explore instead of an abstract-looking drab mess;
- Its music alone makes it worth playing;
- It has pacing - something that the old id games traditionally sucked at;
And so on.

IMO, even mighty Half-Life kind of pales in comparison to Unreal, though here things get more subjective.
Why Epic thought it had to disown such a masterpiece is completely beyond me.