9 hours to download. played a bit before bed at 3 am, before needing to download 14% again due to a game-crasing error.

Beutiful game. you can pick up almost anything and throw it. the gravity gun is cool. and the upgraded gravity gun, very late in the game, makes the last chapter a cakewalk. i love that gun
the game engine is wonderfull, the diferent chapters have very diferent feels. and you get to drive vehicles in a couple different parts. I beat the game on easy (the defealt difficulty) within 24 hours of first being able to play the game.

Aparently the biggest problem is that the retail version requires you to log online and use steam to 'authenticate'. because steam has finite bandwidth, and everyone is downloading or authenticating at the same time, it takes a while. HL2 claimed it was downloaded after a mere 55% was downloaded after 4 hours. fortunately the moniter function lets you see whats downloading in the background.

Overall, im kinda disapointed by the plot. HL2 is basicly about stopping the old administrator of black mesa, who is a corrupt dictator dealing with some unkown entity(s) in another universe. What you see around you is a world where the events from black mesa have spread and become common place. Yet none of this is ever explained or expanded upon.

I'm pirating this game on principle. DRM like this is beyond offensive.

http://www.gucomics.com/archives/view.php?...?cdate=20041117




-karma

As much as Im a HL fan, requiring your game owners to have an internet connection is f*cked up... never mind that getting steam to work via 56k is near impossible. Im throwing this one on the "borrow or pirate" list.

I bought it simply for a number of reasons. Firstly, I can't realistically download games like that on a 56k dialup

Secondly, I was able to get it relatively cheap (£26 on DVD from Amazon).

And thirdly, because although Steam is an abomination that must die of syphillis, rot in Hell and then get really crappd on, I really wanted to play this. I so wanted this to be a good game, and I was so worried that it would have "sequel syndrome".

Luckily, as the OP said: it rocks. I think what impresses me is that it runs a wide spectrum of play styles:



Also, HL2 proved that you don't need massively over-complicated graphics to have good solid and fun graphics. As in HL2, clean simplicity was the key, leading to extremely good frame rates; and yet the sheer attention to detail was amazing. The skins for the characters, in particular, were stunning (the eyes of the NPCs actually reflected the fricking light! Hell, Dr. Kleiner's glasses reflect the orange test tubes when you turn him that way!).

Which of course leaves me feeling a little stung that such a great game is put out in such a stupid way. Grr.

Well although Steam kinda sucks at least it background downloads my updates while I sleep... For those still watching and finished (wow that was an ending...) there's supposed to be a surprise in the update that's coming in a few days... this will be interesting to see what they give us.

I did love this game though, one of the best FPS ever.