if you haven't played this game, now its your chance. buy it now and play. i played all half life game series and all have been very fun and entertaining. Don't listen to these haters, this is the best first person shooter there is.

I highly recommend the game, but it when you register it it's locked to a single user account on Steam. So if you buy it used, you won't be able to register, and can't play!

Simply great. Works on many older PCs. There are tons of associated titles and mods available. And you cannot seriously plan on playing the HL2 episodes unless you have played this game. The story alone would make a great book or movie. The game is the best and is already a classic!

Ive heard so many people say "oh, HL2 is hands down the best game ever." give me a break. I had more fun with other Valve products like Sin Episodes: Emergence.

I guess my biggest gripe was the game itself, instead of the installation problems. I mean, it had awesome graphics, cool weapons, but the important things weren't there. First off, the story was kind of bland. The ending wasn't all that great either. I guess the ending sucked because it was leaving it open for the following 2 episodes of HL2. Anyway, the story wasn't all that in depth. It was alright, but not as great as other games, like Sin, Halo, or Far Cry.

The game play was alright. You spend quite a bit traveling in the stupid airboat and car. Both of which, are a pain in the a$$ to control and you always have several people shooting at you or a gunship on your butt. I spent much of the time on these levels saving and reloading just to progress. I really wished they didn't have these levels. The car wasn't fun at all. It never wanted to go where you were turning the wheels and you always had a dozen antlions chewing your head off or something throwing you off the cliff. If they did without the vehicle levels, it would have been so much better.

A lot of the weapons were good, but there were a couple that were just crap. Mainly, the grenade and the rocketlauncher. Neither one were all that great unless you hit the enemy directly with either one. Got a room full of enemies? dont bother with a grenade. You may get half of them if youre lucky and they manage to congregate on the grenade. Other than that, its just easier to shoot them up with a rifle or something.

Good game i guess, if you like having your a$$ handed to you all the time. After a while it just gets tedious. Shoot, jump, shoot, save, get hurt, shoot, die, reload. Thats how it was for me the whole time i was playing. Either that you had some enemy, that you never seen before, that somehow managed to sneak up behind you and waste you away. I only struggled through this to see what the ending was like, and that was about it. Granted, the graphics were great, the engine was great, but these annoyances can really kill a game. There are several other games out there worth playing more than this one. Sin Episodes, Far Cry, Halo, any of these would be better. Dont get me wrong, i play several games, but this one definitely didn't live up to all the hype i kept hearing. If it wasn't for the graphics and engine, i would have given it only 1 star.

I just started recently playing HL2 again because I put together a new rig, and I have to tell you it is far from showing its age. What a phenomenal game and engine this is. This game has one of the best storylines and endings ever. The fishbowl game Bioshock has nothing on this.

The graphics are still amazing by today's standard. And when you install the FakeFactory Cinematic Mod v4, the only game that will surpass this visually is Crysis. The facial and mouth animations are still unmatched. The engine could use an update with new and more advanced shadowing, but that's it.

Also, I think steam is great. A couple of my HL2 CDs have become unreadable, but thankfully the cd-key is registered to my account so I am able to download this as many times as I want. Very convenient.