For five years people waited for Half-Life 2, myself included. I remember being amazed by PC Gamer's first world exclusive preview. Half-Life was a favorite of mine and I was eager to see the continuing adventures of Gordon Freeman. More previews came and went, the gargantuan striders were introduced (OHHHHHH!) there would be drivable vehicles (AHHHHHHH!), the living City 17 (OHHHHHHH!), and the game would have the most realistic physics ever. Essentially this meant that the player had free reign in an entire City and anything the player could imagine would be possible in the game. There were concept sketches of prospective enemies, all sorts of cool looking models for monsters and shit. There was supposed to be some rich storyline or some bullshit focusing on the battle against the evil combine overlords.

None of this came to be.

City 17 is a maze of ruins with only one path through it. In games such as GTA if you see something interesting you can do anything in your power to reach it. In HL2 if you see something interesting you can be sure to get there after you go through the headcrab infested basement of some building, up to the roof of that building, across the roof to another building, down through the headcrab infested basement of that building and out onto the street where you flee strider fire by running into ANOTHER headcrab infested basement. In all there are probably five types of ground enemies. Combine troops, fast zombies, zombies, headcrabs, and Combine Elite. Oh and let's not forget the combine gunships. Various enemies and portions of the game were cut out. Valve will say, "Well, they weren't working" but considering their failure to release HL2 in 2003 Valve most likely rushed the game to market. The rich story doesn't exist, well unless you count vague conversations with NPCs as "rich". If you want the full story you're expected to buy that book of Half-Life 2 concept art. Gameplay consists of shooting everything, occasionally stopping to solve a simple physics puzzle. Oh look a see-saw shaped contraption, I need to get up to that ledge over there and there happen to be cinder blocks all around me, I'll just place them on one end of the see-saw and up I go, fucking genius Valve! The touted facial emotions or whatever the fuck Valve called it consisted of shifty eyes during or right before action sequences and happy wide eyes during extended dialogue, then again that can be forgiven because I doubt spending five years making a computer game leaves much time to interact with actual human beings. Actually I'm wrong in saying that there is no story, something's there but it's a jumble of red herrings. OH LOOK THE G-MAN IS UP ON THAT LEDGE! HE'S WALKING DOWN THAT HALLWAY! LOOK AT THOSE ROBOT THINGS IN THE CITADEL! HL3 seriously looks like it's going to be a tremendous letdown on par with The Matrix sequels. OMG T3h G-Man is t3h ARCHITEKTS! GRODNEN FREEDMAn PHAILZ!

One positive is the inclusion of Counterstrike: Source...I guess. I'm not really a fan of CS because I'm fucking tired of the maps Dustbowl and Aztec, which seem to be the only CS maps in existence. Also, I can't stand people who bitch about the AWP or block players from buying certain weapons. If you get killed it's not because someone "cheated" by using the AWP or Automatic Shotgun it's because you suck at CounterStrike.