I guess it depends a bit on how you define 'competitive'.
From my (admittedly somewhat biased) standpoint,
Quakeworld is up there with any modern FPS. It's over 11 years old now and has such a steep learning curve that even people who have been playing for a year or two are still viewed as newbies.
However, the problem is that due to the relatively small community (the main European league,
http://nqr.nu/nqr11/ , only has 48 clans signed up), there aren't THAT many top clans left, maybe half a dozen genuine elite clans. The overall standard of play has been relatively stagnant over the past 5 years with some of the former elite retiring and having their shoes gradually filled by up-and-coming stars. So while it is competitive in the sense of, good players/clans will get utterly destroyed by the great ones, there perhaps isn't as much strength in depth as there is in games with more media/financial backing like CS.
On the flipside, if you consider the fact that people have been playing QW for over 10 years (since long before Halflife was released, nevermind these newfangled mods like CS
), then you gotta understand that there is some pretty hardcore dedication there from some players. It's not the kind of game that you can pick up and become a div1 player overnight... in 1on1 it's a bit easier but in 4on4 TDM it is virtually impossible for new players to reach the top level in less than a couple of years.
