Gabe, you created an obligation when you ended Episode 2 on a cliff hanger. You should have just let Marc Laidlaw and the game devs just make more games.

As long as it had kept the core writers, I'm sure everyone would be happy. Hell, any "innovation" is being handled by the modding continuity. Breadman of Entropy: Zero created a more fun combat loop then any of the HL2 games have. Singularity has a better physics weapons just by being able to use it independent of the selected weapon and making the object transparent.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 minutes ago

I. Do. Not. Care. About. The. Tech.

Exactly. The tech doesn't matter. Tech only exists in service of the gameplay, and (introduced with HL1), the story (previous to HL1 the 'story' of most games was just a quick blurb on why there's monsters and why you have to shoot them).

Gamers DGAF about new tech. Gamers wanted to be told a story. We LOVED the story.

Valve could've used the existing engine, built NOTHING AT ALL NEW, and just finished the story with existing assets and we'd all have been over the moon happy.