Why I buy this one ?
- Combines all the elements of the Half-Life online universe, with new single and multiplayer content
- Half-Life 2 brings you exciting new game modes and new firearms for a more complete gaming experience
- Go all-out for battles where it's every man for himself, in Deathmatch
- New animations with more menacing monsters than ever
- Incredibly advanced AI as enemies adapt, plan, improvise and respond

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What our customer's say!

"Seriously, don't buy it used or it won't work!", I have no idea how the game is because I bought it from an Amazon marketplace seller and now the "Steam" anti-piracy protection system won't let me play it.

I went to the Steam support pages like I was told to, and I read this:

"... you must have a copy of your purchase receipt from within the last 90 days to have the CD Key moved to your account.

"We do not accept receipts from online auction websites or used software vendors. If you do not provide a purchase receipt, Valve will not be able to transfer the CD Key."


I can't believe that anyone accepts this as a reasonable way to sell consumers a game in a box, but I guess they do!

I read a thread on some Half-Life 2 forum where the users were telling a guy not to bother Valve, the software creators, with questions about their policy, but rather just to return his used game to whoever he bought it from.

Unbelievable!

From what I hear, maybe if I send the right person at Valve an actual photo of my box, and wait two months, I might be allowed to play. However, that's certainly not what the text on the Steam support page says.

If this is really the accepted practice regarding used copies of Half-Life 2, then what is Amazon doing letting their marketplace sellers sell these used copies?

Unbelievable! How much research is one supposed to do when buying a game?

"Simply the best FPS ever", Ignore the 1 or 2 star comment this game is the best ever.

Pros:
Excellent Graphics
Well thought out and original story line
Challenging and makes you think
Suspensful
Gravity Gun
And don't get me started on DOG.

Cons:
None

But it does not end here, buy episodes 1 and 2. They add to the fun.
But I REALLY, EXTREMLY RECOMMEND BUYING THE ORANGE BOX.
It includes Half Life 2 and episode 1-2, Portal(fun and challenging puzzle game), and Team Fortress 2 For only 60$!!!

"Steam still sucks", Played this when it first came out and decided pay it again-dealing with Steam is preventing me from playing the game just like last time,it took days to get a response.Back in the basement with this game I will never buy a product that has anything to do with Steam

"A classic.", A game that all gamers should have in their library. Good story line and great graphics.

"Great Sequel", This game is one of the best things to hit the half-life series. With ramped up graphics and a solid story half-life packs twice the punch this time around. SPOILER!!!!. in this game you don't go to black mesa (although you can go back in Half-life:Source which uses the great graphics and plays through the story again.) but instead you go to a certain City 17 which is run by a "alien" race called the combine where you are on a train after the g-man put you in a stasis after the end of the original. From there you are then through security to find Barney the security guard from the original also. From the beggining you are immersed in the story and you will be on the edge of your seat. This game can even run on lower end machines with great graphics still.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Great engine, lousy levels. Feel like puppy on a leash...", Great graphics engine, but it was poorly put to use. Levels are about as linear as in any game we have played in the last 5 years. Instead of being inventive, you need to guess what the level designer wanted you to do. Basically go straight ahead, picking off the enemies 1 at a time is a predictable manner. When you need to use the gravity you will know, as there is an obvious object put right in front of you.

Graphics and monsters look really great. Keyboard controls are great.

So much potential, so much wasted. Had to play only one session a week as it becomes extremely boring. Inside levels look a lot alike. You will get tired of running down the corridor, finding the one door of 12 that opens, shoot the predictable monster, open the next door, loop around above where you were, and finally out a door near where you started. Even the outdoor scenes have boulders and cliffs placed right along the path that the level designer dictated you should go. No attacking from a cliff, no kamikaze jumps into the enemy, no fun.

Uneventful ending. The whole last 1/3 of the game is a waste of great graphics and playability is poor (1 star).

Steam updates nearly every time you start the game, delaying your session by a minute or two even if you aren't playing online. The game doesn't even start loading for 15-30 seconds even if there isn't an update. Just dumb.

Great game engine, terrible game implementation.

"After finally playing this game, I'm quite disappointed.", Well, I've played through Half Life 1 many times, including the expansions. It wasn't until recently, however, that I had a system capable of really running Half Life 2 in all its glory so it was exciting to finally pick up this title. But, it wasn't really what I was expecting to be honest. While I could play Half Life 1 for long sittings no problem, it was hard for me to even go over an hour before getting bored with Half Life 2. I believe it's the combination of the painfully slow and uninteresting story, along with the monotonous play. It just wasn't as "fun" to me as the first title.

Pros:

1. The graphics are truly out of this world. Now that I've played both Doom 3 and this game, I can't really even see where there was an argument over which game had the better graphics. This game is beautiful and there is so much detail in the world.

2. Voice acting is very good.

3. Level design is pretty good for the most part and original. Also, the driving levels were pretty fun.

Cons

1. The story is the first thing that comes to my mind. You just get thrown in some city without any real explanation as to why, and then start fighting your way through it. It's completely bare bones with no real explanation as to what's going on and why. Also, the characters in this game are just nobodys from the first game that all of a sudden have a huge role. There is no character development on their part, they basically just keep telling you where to go and what to fight next. I could care less about these people, because throughout the whole game they remain people that just tell me what to do next.

2. The weapon selection, besides the gravity gun, is very boring and basic. I was looking forward to a nice new set of weapons, along with some of the old, but Half Life 1 was better in my opinion, especially Opposing Force.

3. Just the same enemies over and over and over again. Combine Combine Combine, and the variety of different combine is next to nothing. There are a few aliens back again, but not many.

4. There is just something missing, and I can't pinpoint it, but it's there. Something that keeps me interested and that connects me to a game and it's world. Maybe it's the fact that the bad guys aren't presented in a way to make me dislike them, or the good guys aren't presented in a way to make me like them, or maybe it's the monotony. Not sure, but it's there.



"Read a book instead", As far as enjoying this game, I have to give it a one star as I find it not very fun. Overall though, I will give it two stars because the graphics are okay and because it has a very unique and neat weapon called the anti gravity gun and I enjoy the magnum and shotgun but wish there was more ammo available for these. I like to hunt in these games. I like to kill everything (with a shotgun as much as possible). I like to roam about doing this as well.

When I play a game, I really like an interactive adventure and a challenge. I find neither of those in this game. The game is soooooo linear its insulting. I have no ability to feel as a working part of the game though I am obviously the main focus and character. All I can do is shoot the mobs, walk along the given plank, wire or long hallway and on to the next set of mobs. I can't choose this door over that one or explore left instead of right etc. Its only what is exactly preplanned for me that I can choose to do.

Where are the real secrets and puzzles? What is offered is so forward that they might as well not even be there because you have to do them and they are no challenge to find and figure out. They are just there and in going through the motions there is no sense of accomplishment, no feeling of achieving something extra.

I know many FPS games are like this but not all and this one leads me to turning the game off and finding something to read for my evening enjoyment. After a few days I give it another try for a few hours and shut it down for the week again. The atmosphere is practically colorless. The characters are boring. I also hate the fact that there is a human in front of me, I have a gun yet I can't shoot it, no matter what consequence the game can give me if it actually allowed me to explore this enviroment. Give me a death or a game over but dammit, let me shoot the guy whose trying to help me if I want. I love to interact in unpredictable ways with my enviroment to see what can and will happen. If I have to follow along a purely predestined path of someone else's story then make it a good intriguing story such as Silent Hill or I might as well just read a book because the story line in Half Life 2 is boring and totally sucks. I know I didn't buy the game for the story but for the adventure and its like an old style arcade game as far as the prescripted scenes, mobs and AI that have to all be encountered in a precise, defined order and manner. There is no adventure that you can feel as if you are taking a part within.

I started the game picking up things and throwing them in peoples' faces and I'd get a couple of boring replies but nothing more. Beat me to death or something. Heck, even the guards wouldn't hurt me let alone beat me to death for screwing with them. It just wasn't fun and on I go to find another game that will capture my attention and allow me to screw around with my fictitious world.

Like I said, just read a book instead.

(oh and btw, I had no trouble with Steam and I also had no problems with the game's performance even though I have an avg system at best. I thought I'd add that bit seeing that alot of reviews focuses on performance and problems with Steam. I am not real fond of having to play a single player online and through Steam though.)

"Best Game ever!", This is an older game, but the combination of graphics the fun factor and the dept of the universe has yet to be surpassed. It is widely accepted to be the best computer or video game ever made. If you have a good computer and a good internet connection once the engrossing game is finished the wide variety of mods and deathmatch options have me playing this game even 3 years after its release. Not to be missed!!! I am extremelly surprised that this juggernaut of an artistic achievement doesn't have 5 stars.

"This was the single most frustrating and annoying game I've ever played", I have to admit, I am utterly shocked and confounded by all of the positive reviews this game as gotten. It is one of the most highly-rated games on GameSpot's and IGN's websites, as well as many other places. It's called one of the best games ever made, and possibly the best FPS ever made. But I'm afraid I have to vehemently disagree with that opinion.

Before I talk about the game itself, let me just say this about the Steam engine: I don't like the idea of it at all, but having said that, installing the game and setting up an account was extremely easy and painless. It was just a normal installation as far as I'm concerned. There was nothing complicated about it. Those who had problems either had a different version, or made some mistakes, or maybe had something like AOL that was perhaps incompatible. I don't know, but don't let the whole Steam controversy deter you from trying the game.

Now for the game itself. First off, let me name the good things about this game: excellent graphics, excellent voice acting, nice level variation with vehicles mixed in, and the story develops in an interesting way (rather than cutscenes, the characters walk around and talk with you in the actual game world).

Having said that, I simply despised every minute that I played this game. In a way, I almost can't describe why I had such a strong negative reaction to what I was really hoping and expecting to be a great game. But some of the definite things I can say are these:

There are absolutely too many enemies! Right from the beginning (which is even worse, since you have fewer weapons) you are constantly bombarded by enemies all around you. You might think everything is clear, but suddenly there are two or three guys way ahead of you, so far ahead that you can barely see them, but they are pretty good at seeing and shooting you. On top of this, there are guys above you (on elevated areas) which are difficult to find, so you are always wondering what's shooting at you, and finally they'll appear behind you as well, even though you've already "cleared" the area behind you. And all of this happens *at the same time*! I'm all for an action-packed shoot 'em up, this is an FPS after all, but this is just too much. It was so overwhelming (and right from the start) that I was frustrated nearly every minute that I walked around in this game. I was constantly under fire and taking damage, and there was little I could do about it but try to shoot back -- that is, whenever I could finally find them all.

On top of this, throw a few helicopters and spaceships flying above you, constantly shooting you and dropping bombs on you, and for quite a while there is *nothing* you can do about it but take it. It's difficult to find a place to hide since there is so much going on, so you're pretty much at the mercy of a million things at once.

Add to this the most annoying enemy I have ever seen in any game I've ever played (that little creature with four "legs" that jumps at you). These things are everywhere and they are extremely quick and difficult to target. Until you get a more powerful weapon, they take a few shots to kill, but getting in more than one or two shots before they move again (and lunge at you) is difficult. I wouldn't mind so much if they only existed in one part of the game, but they are everywhere and they are unbelievably maddening to deal with.

I'm also not a big fan of driving vehicles in general, and I didn't really like the controls of the vehicles in this game. It didn't feel very precise to me, and often I would have to backtrack or slow down and figure out where to go. It didn't feel like it played out as quickly and as smoothly as it should have.

As far as the story goes, there isn't much of one. The way the story unfolds is interesting, as I mentioned above, but it's unfortunate that not too much is unfolding! For the first part of the game you're just told to move from one area to another. Finally a couple of scientists are kidnapped and you have to go rescue them, but I never felt like I was actually *in* this game at all. Of course, getting immersed in a game that is constantly aggrevating you is difficult to do.

I should also add, just to emphasize that my reaction to this game was so strong and so visceral, that this is the only game I've ever played where I've actually slammed my hands down on my desk, or thrown them up in the air, and shouted profanity and cries of frustration at the screen. More than once I actually shouted "I *hate* this game". I think it takes a lot to actually elicit that kind of involuntary reponse, but this game excelled at bringing it out of me. I truly hated every minute that I played it.

Now, given that it's gotten such great reviews, and that my hatred of it is almost too emotional to be valid for anyone else, I would encourage people to still try it. Certainly any game that receives near perfect scores should be experienced for yourself. Perhaps you'll find it much less frustrating than I did.