Holy crap! Just finished this game about 2 minutes ago and felt the need to rant about how truly brilliant it was. I've never played another game that was quite as exhilarating as this one. For a five hour game they certainly crammed as much excitement and intensity in as they could. The cinematic presentation was awe inspiring and really leaves you wanting a lot more by the end of the game. I can understand why some people have been upset by its short length, but this game by no means deserves anything less than a 9.0 despite that. If the original Half-Life 2 had been this awesome the whole way through I would have definitely hopped on the HL2 fan boy wagon. I think by the time all three episodes have been released people will be talking about how much better these episodes were than the original game. Oh and the short teaser they show for Episode 2 looks amazing and the graphics appear to be getting a nice overhaul as well (hope my computer can run it like that). Any who, better go reinstall Half-Life 2 now.