Valve may have grown hilariously mercenary in recent years, and moved away from being a proper dev house for non-Steam stuffs.

But it is extremely, EXTREMELY telling that their OWN PEOPLE, including, presumably, ones who worked on the original Half Life, have pretty much given this game their approval, if only personally.

Crowbar Collective tore the original apart, saw what worked and what didn't, and now it pretty much 90% *works*

They even got in somebody whose input made the HECU Marines' dialog feel a bit more authentic (at least to me).

If you can scrape up twenty bucks? Grab this. If you have to wait for it to go on sale? Do that.

Oh, and check out the Blue Shift mod, as well. It's not yet done, but considering that HECU Collective is rebuilding one of the original xpac's from scratch, as well? It's not really surprising; I'd estimate another year or two before they're done, but what they have so far is rock-solid. Watch this space.

Valve may have grown hilariously mercenary in recent years, and moved away from being a proper dev house for non-Steam stuffs. But it is extremely, EXTREMELY telling that their OWN PEOPLE, including, presumably, ones who worked on the original Half Life, have pretty much given this game their approval, if only personally. Crowbar Collective tore the original apart, saw what worked and what didn't, and now it pretty much 90% *works* They even got in somebody whose input made the HECU Marines' dialog feel a bit more authentic (at least to me). If you can scrape up twenty bucks? Grab this. If you have to wait for it to go on sale? Do that. Oh, and check out the Blue Shift mod, as well. It's not yet done, but considering that HECU Collective is rebuilding one of the original xpac's from scratch, as well? It's not really surprising; I'd estimate another year or two before they're done, but what they have so far is rock-solid. Watch this space.