how many hours down the drain am I looking at? 

Several hundred maybe? Depends on if you actually beat it and explore.You can beat the main quest pretty easily, but everything else is going to take you quite a while. 

I've been wondering the same thing nitin. I don't want to play it if it's 200 hours - I get sick of a game after 10 hours normally. 

This game is a lot of fun exploring. There's a ton of stuff to do. It's not like the same thing for 20 hours - there really is a huge variety of things to do in the game. 

Floating ! on people's heads :( 

it really depends on what kind of gamer you are. if you stick to the main quest, i think it's over in a few hours. 10 maybe? if you do a few side quests, it can stretch to 15-20ish.
it's only if you start downloading mods and really exploring the entire map that you start to look at 50-100+ hours.
otoh, some of the best moments in the game for me was while exploring. sometimes without even a quest as a goal. just bought the fastest horse and started in a direction. :P
also, there's this great zombie mod that simulates a zombie apocalypse, complete with towns slowly becoming infected and spreading to other towns. the cool thing is that no matter what happens, you can just reset the mod and have everything back to normal when you get bored of it, without loosing your game. 

I think I'll play it causally and if I like it, we will see :)

Am I correct in remembering a couple of recommended mods? 

Reddit has this thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/oblivion/comments/cdmzf/the_reddit_beginners_guide_to_modding_oblivion/ 

necros, I played it 100 hours without any mods (except for a few UI enhancements), I must be weird. :) 

Can't wait for Skyrim! 

So is Kinn. But yes, a game like Oblivion takes time, especially if you explore every inch of. This is weird, because there are many duplicate areas (dungeons, caverns, Oblivion realms) that become boring to visit after a while.

An excellent and highly recommendable mod that was posted here some time ago is Nehrim.

I haven't followed Skyrim or watched any trailers, but I'm up for it too. Also, Risen 2 is due at the end of the year. 

Nehrim was nice, and I'm really looking forward to Risen 2, yar! Especially after the disappointment that was Gothic 4. 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/30/maximum-mod-crysis-2-editor-released/

I think I will be purchasing Crysis 2 if it goes on sale ... 

I've been messing with it and its very very similar to sandbox2 for the first crysis.

A nice thing Crytek did is include the maps for most (if not all) the single player, so you can see how they made it. Very handy! 

Stand alone version is still supposed to come out in August. 

Out of extreme boredom I'm replaying this, as my copy of Madness Returns hasn't arrived yet. The levels are pretty crude, the Q3 engine obviously wasn't used to its fullest potential. Then again, okay 11 years ago and target specs... The chess castle levels, however, are awesome. Love the theme/style. I so hope I'll get to do my ever-imagined b/w abstract map some time... 

Finally got around to playing this and I enjoyed them immensely. Game generally 'feels' so right and smooth both visually and with combat, just like it did during Singularity for me. The mech sections were neat and I loved how you're not exactly forced to use it. One hatred I have for games is forced vehicle and turret sections. Unfortunately, this has a couple of turret segments, but they're very spread out. What makes these annoying (on Hard) is the inability to defend yourself other than being quick, kinda gets old repeating this segment several times just to get through it. I'd prefer them to be optional. As for the levels, I adored the first location with all the modern architecture and design going on. There tends to be a lot of underground stuff, ruined cities areas and levels which drag out a specific theme for some time - but I didn't exactly get bored either. The DLC isn't too bad, more of the same in a few different locations and also remained a good romp.

Now I'm tempted to grab Fear 3. 

I thought Alice was Q2-based. 

Based on the fakk heavy metal engine. 

Is the FAKK engine anything like the Q3 engine? 

The FAKK engine IS the Q3 engine. 

fakk is q3 but also has extra stuff, i think for model animation. i think it used md4 skeletal animation that was present in q3a, but not used. 

Yeah, FAKK was Q3A + �berTools

http://www.ritualistic.com/content.php/games/uber/features.php 

Speaking of q3 engined games, did anyone ever buy the full version of Dark Salvation? http://www.darksalvation.com/index2.html

I remember the demo being shit, but it might be an ok game. 

http://www.darksalvation.com/order.html