On a side note or two; I so loved this game. It was the first game in many many years that I actually played to the end. In hindsight I also like the fact that Valve has not oversold the (to be?) franchise. But now I am ready for a sequel. There is a cake!
I think that says something about how games are being produced, versus how they should be. One hour of quality, memorable gaming beats the hell out of 52 hours of rat killing, herb collecting and princess escorting. Yet the budget of a game is directly proportional to the amount of content you have to put in, not its quality—the quality is inversely proportional to the amount of time allowed to deliver each piece (so it hurts doubly to have to produce more), and the experience level of the developers/writers/artists/etc (so it hurts triply, since more content = more burn-out = more churn = less experience on each new project.)
On a side note or two; I so loved this game. It was the first game in many many years that I actually played to the end. In hindsight I also like the fact that Valve has not oversold the (to be?) franchise. But now I am ready for a sequel. There is a cake!
Now, all I need is time to actually play it...