I don't know where you've been for the last few months but... in response to what you said UE3 can do.
...render low resolution meshes that look like they are high res meshes in realtime. >> A lot of other games do this now. Doom 3 I think started this charade. It's called PolyBump Mapping.
...use per-pixel lighting for high dynamic range lighting effects.Nothing really new as this is just the use of Pixel Shaders. The previous Unreal Engine didn't really use Pixel Shaders much. Stalker uses specific Pixel Shaders to achieve these effects.
...simulate area lighting, blurring shadows as they stretch off into the distance. Also it can render realtime shadows on every object in a scene. You can do this in UT2K4 if you wanted to, it just wasn't very fast.
...uses Virtual Displacement Mapping to make objects look more detailed than they really are.Same technology as it is for PolyBump mapping although slightly different in terms that they are using a texture for the reference information rather than a mesh. This is better than Texture Bump Mapping since actualy polgons will be created instead of just the simulation of light. Again, this was done and shown many months ago with the Matrox Parahelia card doing this via Hardware means.
...allow total control over objects in a game environment so you can open doors, pick up any item laying on the floor. Those items can be flexible and can even have their own lighting effects such as internal lighting.This is Unrealscript. Unrealscript has been out for ages, and this kind of game interactivity all depended on how active the game developer was. Any engine can have full interactivity. This is just an issue with the developer.
...render models that appear to have a high polygon count but actually have a much lower poly count.Polybump mapping again.
Only ~2-3 of the Engine facts you made were kind of Unreal Engine only stuff.
The new Unreal 3.0 engine will blow most anything else away when a game is finally developed with it.
Well there is hoping. A good engine doesn't instantly mean a good game will come out of it. Heck, Postal 2 was developed on Unreal Engine 2, and I think it is the worst piece of rubbish I have ever played.