Gaming

I think this is an astute take-down. Half-Life 2 was very concerned with showing off all the "advancements" it made. While those advancements were certainly novel at the time, they seem less novel and less cohesive now that the entire industry has followed suit.

The physics in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom make the physics in the Source engine look like a fucking joke. So it's really hard to go back to a game like Half-Life 2 and have it stand on those merits because they've been overshadowed for so long. The character design and facial physics have similarly been left in the dust. Once again, it's overshadowed by the entire industry following suit on these technological changes, and the story lacks the depth to make up for it, years down the line.

Half-Life had far fewer gimmicks and in many ways was a more traditional first-person shooter with an excellently put together story. The writing in Half-Life 2 was still strong, but Half-Life was much stronger (this is common for sequels, because you're having to extend a story you already wrote an end for).

In fact, I think that's part of why we never got a Half-Life 2: Part 3. They were entering a phase of what you might call "fiction-debt" where the past choices in the story were beginning to slow down the story and make it less intriguing. Sometimes the more you reveal about the mystery, the less interesting it is. Half-Life left years of mystique behind it because so many parts of the story were still open ended and unexplained.

Also, the choice to make it so you can't kill major characters in a game breaking way is a loss, in my personal opinion. I don't like games that prevent me from doing dumb things. Like at the beginning of Halo: Combat Evolved, I can shoot Captain Keyes right in the face, and every space marine around me will lose his shit and attack me until death. It's actual consequences for negative actions instead of just making a character an unkillable bullet sponge. Similarly in Half-Life you can accidentally kill doctors and security guards that you need to be able to open certain doors.