Half Life 2 greatly prooves that graphics isn't making gaming value
The combat in Half Life 2 is something you've all seen before, nothing new there except for the Zero Point Energy Rifle, or the Gravity Gun which makes to able to pick up items and throw it away on enemies, or just move objects to a location you like.
But the good parts in the game has to be the beginning of it, when you arrive to the City 17 and it all feels so real with the invoiment, it's all really well made and with amazing looking charather models of the civilians and the civil protection guys walking around which is basicly some kind of mean orginazation of clones or something close to that.
Something that shocked me was that the beginning of the game is the complete same thing as the previous game. It starts up you are in a train, and nobody wants to talk to you, and when you finally reach your goal something goes wrong with the teleport and order from there whole hell has broken loose. But there is some moments you'll keep inside of you like when Dr Kleiners pet-headcrab smacks the computer monitor down and makes a mess and other very neutral moments, but the combat is something you will have a hard time to remember becuase it's just like any other FPS out there except for the great physics engine but that's something you'll probably think more about in F.E.A.R than Half Life 2.
And also the storyline and replay value is very poor in this game, I hoped for a much deeper story in Half Life 2. And when you've played it through once you will most likely just check around the first maps again just to bring back some great moments but after a 15, 20 hours you'll probably but the game away and play multiplayer which is something that could have been so much better, they throw in just 2 maps in multiplayer and one mode to play, but if you really like Sierra and doesn't want to critic them you could download mods and new maps from everywhere. But the multiplayer is also a bit disapointing with the lack of modes and maps but I guess they threw in CounterStrike: Source in there just to cover their wounds and think nobody would notice their mistake. But Half Life 2 focuses on Single Player and it's a fair experience but leaves many wishes unfilled and when it tends to the vechicle driving parts it's just about driving around in a way too long time and tends to be very frustrating and slow and the vechicle design isn't something special either.
But Half Life 2 is a game that everyone should check out, even if it doesn't match up to it's great publicity.