No topic yet? Let's fix that...
Game time says I beat it in 3.6 hours. That's not very long, and I spent a lot of time poking around in the woods. Alyx didn't seem quite as good a companion this time around, and the constant fawning from all the characters is wearing thin. That's pretty much it for the negatives.
Anyone using the motion blur? I think it looks fantastic, great addition. Helps hide vsynch tearing a little, and fast pans look so much smoother and realistic, doubly so if you are capped at 60fps by your LCD (always are with current LCD and display connection tech). The environment looks great, the high resolution model and actor textures are very welcome.
Oh, and it appears it isn't crediting me many of the achievements I should have...
It's not realistic or fair to go by the actual play time mentioned in the game stats. Heck I can beat Prey on Cherokee in just over 6.5 hrs actual game time without any death walking, done it twice now (Takes a lot of quick saving a replaying some segments though). It doesn't account for reloading saves, replaying some segments (are you playing on the hardest difficulty?), cutscenes, level loading, etc. You can probably figure about double what the game time says for real time. The one review I've read so far (Eurogamer, 90% rating) says about 7 hrs or 50% longer than Episode 1.
My only beef so far is them adding HL2, which all of us buying the expansions already have, and jacking up the price to that of a full length installment. I've seen it advertised at Circuit City for $38 and it's sold out, but my inclination is I'd rather not pay more than $25-$30 for an expansion.
That being said, I do like that they kept the system spec low and I hear the ending is spectacular. I may just have to break down and give it a go at $38. The inclusion of Portals may justify that amount. There's also a limited number of new titles I can play anymore now that shader 3 is becoming a requirement.