So beautiful... http://www.udk.com. This just made the last 2.5 years of development on my project utterly worthless... but it's exciting to have this kind of power now!
Indeed. I believe the guys that work for EPIC spend around 3 weeks full time on a single character. If you want to make a good looking game, then you either need a team spending a lot of time on it. Then there is the amount everything will change over time, so I would not think it is good for a project you are working on by yourself part time for two and a half years.
There are probably a number of smaller engines that would serve your needs on smaller projects.
It really seems that unless you are going to try to make money from your product, it is not worth using it. Unless of course you are preparing to apply for a job with someone who does use it.