I think I'm the only soul on Earth who thinks this is way weaker than Episode 1 or HL2. My issue is that it felt way too gimmicky for my tastes. For example, the first 1/4 of the game is spent in small cave areas fighting annoying bug enemies, in general this area was visually repetitive aswell as fighting enemies was very boring. The middle section of the game is decent but the last 1/4 of the game takes an open ended approach to level design which I'm not a fan of. There is no incentive to explore for me so finding the right path ends up being tedious. The final boss while I appreciate the scope just ends up being annoying, limited ammo, an annoying gimmick where you have to fire sticky bombs onto the striders and those stalker enemies which accompany it are bullet sponges. It felt more annoying than fun, and thats what I'd say about this game overall. The story is cool, it's great just like all of HL2 and the visuals are superb. But the gameplay being annoying combined with the abrupt ending just left a sour taste in my mouth. I like the rest of HL2 but Episode 2 just ends up not catering to my taste. No disrespect to anyone who likes this, just didn't jive with me.