I personally have never played any of the Half-Life series. Does it truly live up to the hype that users on Reddit and other sites boost it up to?
I tried the second one, and frankly did not like it much at all. The story seemed interesting enough, but the FPS format just did not make it enjoyable for me.
Did you play it when it was new? When it was first released it was a great game compared to the other games of it's day; however, the games of today have of course become better. So it probably wouldn't be that great played today, because FPS games are the worse when it comes to age. (In my experience.) You have to remember that Half-Life 2 came out in 2004.
No, not when it was new. I think it was a couple years back. I'm sure as a new game it would have seemed much better, but the FPS genre has never really enjoyable for the storyline to me. It had some really enojyable elements though, but not enough to keep my intrest. It is a solid game for its time, I agree, but not as good as it is hyped to be.
Critics praised Half-Life 2 for it's advanced graphics and physics. The Guardian gave praise especially to the environment design throughout the game. Most of the interest came from it's engine, and not particularly the gameplay. It's also seen as having a good storyline as most FPS games during that time lacked such a particular feature. It also has a unique character that everyone loves-- Gordon Freeman.
The environments were actually one of the things I enjoyed most of the time, especially Ravenholm. The graphics and physics did feel a bit outdated though. Have you tried the Black Mesa mod though? If it's good, I might try it, and see if I can get in on the story a bit better.
I only have Half-Life 2 for Xbox 360, and I've never actually finished it.
Oh alright, I had it on the PC. Never really got all that far through it.
Given its influence on the genre, it probably doesn't hold up terribly well against modern standards. If you consider it in context though, it was released alongside DOOM 3, Fable, GTA: San Andreas, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Far Cry, making it much more appreciable. It's definitely worth playing if you haven't already. As for the original Half-Life, you can buy it fairly cheaply on Steam or you can play the fan-developed remake Black Mesa, which gets the gist across in a modern framework. Bear in mind, though, that Black Mesa requires that you own at least one Source game (Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2, etc. Not sure if TF2 counts).
It's kept Valve in the news all those years, and Valve is a great company.
In my opinion what made the original half life great was the effort Valve put in to give you that immersion feeling while playing, it was simply ahead of its time and changed how fps games tell interactive stories that the player can connect with. Also the mod community and all the great games we have now that started as HL mods also contributed the hype surrounding HL.