Untill you play it. I said the same in ~2003 with the first Deus Ex. Dull graphics, not the best usage of the first Unreal engine, cliché conspiacies almost straight from the X-Files series and common urban legens.

Yet the emergent gameplay and the semi free-roaming playability made it better than most FPS crapware being shold from 2002 to 2009 save for Half Life 2 and Crysis.

This might not be the best game on the flying combat genre, but don't forget that these games are built for fun and if they work on multiplayer, for quick matches quickly forgetting the rest.

Heck, a lot of pro FPS players put the texture settings at the core mininum and with a 1920x1080 resolution at best so they can spot the rest of the players at a quick glance...