Not nearly as godawful as I'd been led to believe, so much the
better!  I loved the car traps for smooshing zombies, that was really
cool!

The "jaguar" zombies are very reminiscent of the Aliens from the EA
Aliens Vs. Predator game.  They're on you like stink on sh.t and move
FAST!!  They definitely had me flailing madly at the keyboard in a
couple of spots, but once I figured out that they were triggered by
certain actions or movement past a certain location, the anxiety was
lessened as I could prepare for their arrival.

As a programming technique, I'm really against re-spawning monsters in
the same way that I'm against mazes and jumping puzzles.  I find them
to be time wasters and not entertaining or challenging to the mind of
the gamer.  Usually, they involve a lot of repetition in order to
figure things out correctly, and I don't much care for that.

I guess my preference is to be able to intuitively accomplish each
sequence (without taking much damage or dying repeatedly) if you
employ the right strategy.  That's why the sequence where you get
dropped to the sand in the beach buggy particularly irritating.  It's
like the programmers are slapping you around just 'cause they can, and
you've just got to take it if you want to proceed.  Meh.

I had to consult an online walkthrough to find out that in order to
right the beach buggy, you need to blast it with the Zero G gun,
something you've done VERY little of to that point because that
function doesn't help you much against monsters or mechanisms!  My
first impulse was to try and "grab" it in order to turn it right side
up (all the while being swarmed by Ant Lions), which did not prove a
useful learning experience.  It would've been appreciated if a small
training sequence could've preceded this part, instructing on the
player on the usefulness of the blast feature of the Zero G gun.

Sequences like this tend to push me away as a gamer because I feel
like I'm being made to endure repeated deaths as a test of character
rather than being able to figure out some of it in advance (thereby
only having to die a few times to test theories).  Such repeated
deaths can really stall the forward momentum, and while I'm not
advocating an easy game that you can blow through, I don't want to go
round in circles for too long!

For instance, the "On A Rail" sequence in HL1 was perfect.  You had
very finite and reliable controls which were easily manipulated.  The
trick was how and when to manipulate them to get pass the sequence.
In HL2, we're presented a massive influx of physics variables, and
this results, IMHO, in too many ways for things to go wrong,
especially with the over-sensitive controls (the initial unfamiliarity
of which often necessitates LOTS of reloads of save games).

I believe I'm about halfway through the game at this point, and I can
see where some would critique the lack of story.  There isn't much
aside from the breaks you get in-between certain sectors, and those
haven't revealed much so far.  Does more come to light as the game
nears the end?

Still having fun and still VERY glad it was only ten bucks!  I guess
I'm just not a very experienced PC gamer, so my assumptions/
expectations are different than most.

Dave S.