Finally got around to playing this. It was incredible on all front, it really feels like a complete game the original Unreal would be an amateur mod of. The weather system, the day-night cycle, the gigantic and incredibly detailed world, the many NPCs... It was simply overwhelming.
I'm only disappointed at how confusing the whole thing is until you get what you're supposed to do. This would benefit from a character establishing what you goals are at the beginning, especially considering you'll retread the same ground many times in different directions. I got the "good" ending but quite frankly I did not understand the story at all and it didn't look like it was the "nice" one.
Also, the difficulty is incredibly steep in some key parts with no way to prepare beforehands. The long sequence of fights at the end before the final boss feels endless and even though the player is given a lot of ammo and health, some things felt just unfair.
There's a sequence where you fight 4 or 5 bots above an endless chasm but they can fly back up if they fall, so the whole thing is very one-sided. Before this, you're fighting ancient warriors in a mostly empty room. They are quick, tough and their projectiles pretty much lock you into place while traveling very fast, which means if you get it once, you're pretty much fucked as they'll keep hitting you, you'll remain stuck and there's not much left to do. And this takes place after another gruelling fight, so my armour was gone, my health deplete and I no ammo left for several weapons.
I consider myself a fairly adept player but I played on max difficulty and at the end it stopped being fun.
But this mod really shines when you're exploring. It has all I want in Unreal: expansive landscapes to explore, medieval cities with tons of buildings to visit, ancient mayan temples and aztec ruins, flying pyramid-ships, Nalis revealing secrets when protected... Up until the final act, I was hoping this would never end because the whole thing is terrific and immersive. As Gamesharder said on OldUnreal, it feels like an open world at times given how big it is. And there's an infinity of details, it's hard to recognize the original Unreal underneath all this polish.