The short version: Tough being more then 10 years old, Half-Life 2 is still a legendary game that is a blast to play, with a gripping story that'll intriuge the interested to learn more about it and it's world (like me, wich lead to me spending hours on the Half-Life Wiki), with awesome sound and music, some of the best characters you'll ever see and facial animations that would make some companies even today jealous. If you want to see why everyone loves this game or why everyone is shouting "HAL-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED" then get this game! It has fast-paced action, with a great weapon variety and besides that all the Gravity Gun!
My recomandation: If you want to see a well made classic shooter, get it! NOW!

Half-Life 2, the Half-Life 2. The sequel to a game that changed the face of gaming and defined the genre of the first person shooters. And you know what? Half-Life 2 surpassed Half-Life 1.
Let's get to the basics:
The gamplay of HL2 is that of a more classic shooter, as the Playermovement is extremely fast, even if sprint is limited, you can run trough the battlefield like a champion. This means that strafing, flanking and other tactics that require movement, are all possible. You're not some slow moving sloth-soldier who can only run for 3 Seconds and regenerates his health. No, you're Gordon Freeman.
The shooting aspect is very well done and requires you too really get close to the enemy. This results, obviously, in close-quarters combat, as neither the enemies, nor you, can really hit anything in the distance. This comes from the fact that the weapons that your going to use the most frequently, loose effectivnes in distance. The SMG, has a wide spread and it's single bullets don't do much damage, wich requires you too really get close to get as many of them as possible into the enemy. This also goes for the AR2, wich has even worse spread. For the shotgun it's pretty obvious, aswell as for explosive weapons and the Gravitygun. Your options for distance fighting are either the crossbow or the magnum, but both have very limited ammo and if your facing 10 or more enemies in the field, without some way of getting more ammo, your going to run out of it quickly.
So the basic shooting gameplay is quick and close, with different tactics that can be applied to different enemies. Out of all this the Gravgun is going to make the most difference as it's your only experimental weapon this time, different to Half-Life 1 where you had three powerfull experimental/special weapons. But the Gravgun makes up for this by being one of the funniest ways to kill things.
Besides the gameplay, I also have to say that this game aged really well. It's hard to describe, but it's something about the artstyle or the texturework, that makes HL2 look reasonable, even in this day and age. But if your looking to buy this game now, Graphics shouldn't be your priority.
The Story, while very well written, with fleshed out characters that have great voice acting (atleast in the english dub) and that show very pretty facial animations. But it can be a bit hard to follow or not immediatly be understood by a new player, as HL2 is more often than not "show don't tell". Often you'll gain significant information about the backstory, world information or information in general about the world of Half-Life by looking for it yourself (tough, a visit in the Wiki can also help). Some might see this as a negative, but for me, this is something positive. By not force feeding the player the story, this game can easily be played by powergamers that don't care about the story and just want to progress (tough, the game is still going to lock you in a room with a staged cutscene, where the NPCS play out the story and the Player can either embrace it and Roleplay as Gordon Freeman or just hop around on the Furniture). As Playerfriendly as this kind of storytelling can be, I have to admit, it's still a shame how much of it is so hard to find and find out about....but one can see this also as a way to flesh the games world out. Indeed HL2 is filled with details that are not in full display or need some work to be found (you wouldn't believe how many players I have seen who do not understand that the humanoid Combine Units are all humans who have been indoctrinated or persuaded to serve the Combine).
The sound, as usual, is also very well made with weapons that have some punch to them and a soundtrack that fits perfectly in the dystopian science-fiction world an creates the right atmesphere in the right moment.

Overall, I have to say Half-Life 2 is a legendary game that earns it's hype and let's you understand, why Half-Life Fans are waiting so desperatly for Half-Life 3



Steam Awards Edit*
Obviously nominated for the game that holds it's best against the times (to be quite honest I just did this to fulfill the award)

The short version: Tough being more then 10 years old, Half-Life 2 is still a legendary game that is a blast to play, with a gripping story that'll intriuge the interested to learn more about it and it's world (like me, wich lead to me spending hours on the Half-Life Wiki), with awesome sound and music, some of the best characters you'll ever see and facial animations that would make some companies even today jealous. If you want to see why everyone loves this game or why everyone is shouting "HAL-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED" then get this game! It has fast-paced action, with a great weapon variety and besides that all the Gravity Gun! My recomandation: If you want to see a well made classic shooter, get it! NOW! Half-Life 2, the Half-Life 2. The sequel to a game that changed the face of gaming and defined the genre of the first person shooters. And you know what? Half-Life 2 surpassed Half-Life 1. Let's get to the basics: The gamplay of HL2 is that of a more classic shooter, as the Playermovement is extremely fast, even if sprint is limited, you can run trough the battlefield like a champion. This means that strafing, flanking and other tactics that require movement, are all possible. You're not some slow moving sloth-soldier who can only run for 3 Seconds and regenerates his health. No, you're Gordon Freeman. The shooting aspect is very well done and requires you too really get close to the enemy. This results, obviously, in close-quarters combat, as neither the enemies, nor you, can really hit anything in the distance. This comes from the fact that the weapons that your going to use the most frequently, loose effectivnes in distance. The SMG, has a wide spread and it's single bullets don't do much damage, wich requires you too really get close to get as many of them as possible into the enemy. This also goes for the AR2, wich has even worse spread. For the shotgun it's pretty obvious, aswell as for explosive weapons and the Gravitygun. Your options for distance fighting are either the crossbow or the magnum, but both have very limited ammo and if your facing 10 or more enemies in the field, without some way of getting more ammo, your going to run out of it quickly. So the basic shooting gameplay is quick and close, with different tactics that can be applied to different enemies. Out of all this the Gravgun is going to make the most difference as it's your only experimental weapon this time, different to Half-Life 1 where you had three powerfull experimental/special weapons. But the Gravgun makes up for this by being one of the funniest ways to kill things. Besides the gameplay, I also have to say that this game aged really well. It's hard to describe, but it's something about the artstyle or the texturework, that makes HL2 look reasonable, even in this day and age. But if your looking to buy this game now, Graphics shouldn't be your priority. The Story, while very well written, with fleshed out characters that have great voice acting (atleast in the english dub) and that show very pretty facial animations. But it can be a bit hard to follow or not immediatly be understood by a new player, as HL2 is more often than not "show don't tell". Often you'll gain significant information about the backstory, world information or information in general about the world of Half-Life by looking for it yourself (tough, a visit in the Wiki can also help). Some might see this as a negative, but for me, this is something positive. By not force feeding the player the story, this game can easily be played by powergamers that don't care about the story and just want to progress (tough, the game is still going to lock you in a room with a staged cutscene, where the NPCS play out the story and the Player can either embrace it and Roleplay as Gordon Freeman or just hop around on the Furniture). As Playerfriendly as this kind of storytelling can be, I have to admit, it's still a shame how much of it is so hard to find and find out about....but one can see this also as a way to flesh the games world out. Indeed HL2 is filled with details that are not in full display or need some work to be found (you wouldn't believe how many players I have seen who do not understand that the humanoid Combine Units are all humans who have been indoctrinated or persuaded to serve the Combine). The sound, as usual, is also very well made with weapons that have some punch to them and a soundtrack that fits perfectly in the dystopian science-fiction world an creates the right atmesphere in the right moment. Overall, I have to say Half-Life 2 is a legendary game that earns it's hype and let's you understand, why Half-Life Fans are waiting so desperatly for Half-Life 3 Steam Awards Edit* Obviously nominated for the game that holds it's best against the times (to be quite honest I just did this to fulfill the award)