Put simply, it just wasn't very good. It starts out with a series of disjointed opening maps and pointless cut-scenes that take too long to get through and add little to the story or the mood. Mapping was mostly competent, however, but uninspired, and features a couple of obnoxious quirks such as one place where you have to leap onto in invisible ledge.

Combat was particularly bad, being unreasonably difficult in several places. Typically it involved multiple enemies and occured where there was no cover or room to maneuver. For example, near the end you have to fight off a squad of alien controllers backed up by a few alien slaves while navigating a narrow support beam, and your best weapon is the MP5. Hey I like a challenge, but this was ridiculous! - and it wasn't even the hardest combat scenario! Further, there was insufficient health or suit power to mitigate these murderous situations. About the only favorable comment I can make is that the variety of enemies was okay.

I could have excused the combat if the story was decent. It wasn't. Oh there was nothing wrong with the basic premise, "secret mission, stop the g-man, save the world" (it sounds kind of familiar actually), but it was very poorly executed. About half way through Gordon gets captured by the g-man, and although he has our hero in something that looks like a huge bug-zapper, he not only doesn't kill him, he transports him to his space station (which Gordon could not otherwise reach) and turns him loose! He didn't even take Gordon's weapons!

One nice thing I can say about it though, it features a first-rate install program - and even more important - an UNinstall program.

Unless you love masochistic combat this is a good one to skip.

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