Yes, added affects certainly added to the game play. No doubt about it. However, what happened over time is that "eye candy" became the ONLY thing that was pushing some of these games. And, as a result, many FPS games sacrificed playability for cool graphics. I am certainly not against cool graphics or new graphical features. However, there has to be a balance and game play is king (as far as I am concerned).
btw, do you remember that unreal had various ways to solve the game? as far as i recall, you were able to go different ways, (which led you to alternate levels at some time) which gave you quite a lot freedom.
There was a good bit of freedom in the first Unreal. For example, in the first outdoor level (right after you left the ship) you could go in a variety of directions to get to the next level. You could take an elevator down and exit beside the river and then go into a cave to eventually make it to the same part of the level that you would have gone to if you had not taken the elevator.
Basically, they did a decent job off giving the player the illusion of freedom, but confining them enough so that the player would not get lost
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