Doom 3's problem wasn't it's engine. It was just crap. No matter how careful you were to cover yourself and check each corner, you'd always cross a 'tripwire' of some kind and a section of wall would open up - something you could never check - and it would always been behind you. It was the laziest attempt at horror I've seen. Once that became apparent, sneaking around was pointless. Just barrel forward, because it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be an undetectable secret wall opening behind you.
Compare to Dead Space, where the things that came through walls did so at reasonable points - ventilation ducts or similar. You'd be on your guard around those spots, but a solid wall was never something with a 'gotcha!' compartment. Being wary was useful in that game.
Doom 3 could have had the sexiest engine in history, but it wouldn't have changed the poor gameplay design.
Sure, after a while Doom 3 became boring and self repeating, but hell, it was one scary motherfucker to play in the middle of the night with your headphones on. I remember playing Doom 3 on my original Xbox and I just couldn't do it many times, as it was so damn scary.
Most of this had to do with the excellent sound design though, and this scary effect kinda ended when you got the bigger weapons in the game.
I've tried to play it a couple times but the first half hour or so is walking around with no shooting and nothing happening and that's pretty unforgivable for an id shooter.
Even Carmack admitted that in retrospect the lack of radiosity contributed to the poor gameplay. He also lamented that most of the art was never seen because it was too dark.
Compare to Dead Space, where the things that came through walls did so at reasonable points - ventilation ducts or similar. You'd be on your guard around those spots, but a solid wall was never something with a 'gotcha!' compartment. Being wary was useful in that game.
Doom 3 could have had the sexiest engine in history, but it wouldn't have changed the poor gameplay design.