HL2 DM would be about 2 billion times better if it was given round based matches and a simple money system to buy weapons like in Counter Strike. That way you could get some real strategy and would make far better use of the physics engine.
It's just too mindless as it is now.

had the pleasure of meeting Robert in the Czech Republic just before Christmas, and he's a very cool guy

Regarding Aftershock, I am fairly confident it will be quite an improvement over Aftermath. They've added quite a few features that people missed and improved most aspects of the game really.

DoD is basically a WWII themed CS mod. We'll soon see if DoD:S is better than BF2.

Who does actually decide whether or not a game actually deserves a GotY title or can companies like valve decide that by themselves and cash in even more money?

There should be a board which has full authority over GotY titles because HL2 is certainly not a GotY worthy game.

HAHAHAHAHH!!!!! You stupid idiot!!! Batman paid for the big over-priced package!!!! What a fucking moron!!!!

Oh well, what do you expect from a kid who names himself Batman?

EA is only concerned with profit, not accuracy. The Maple Leafs, whether we in the west like it or not (I'm from Vancouver, die-hard Canucks fan, currently living in Calgary - the hatred for the "Laffs" is universal), is the most followed NHL team in Canada. EA just wants maximum exposure. It's good that the demo only runs for 5 minutes, because judging from what the Maple Leafs lineup is going to look like this coming season, any longer than 5 minutes would probably result in a career-ending concussion for at least 3 seperate players.

You don't know what you are talking about. Software developement doesn't scale that way.

This is like saying: this one cow will take months until it gives us a calf. Let's assign 30 cows to it so we can have the calf next week. The expansion pack is another calf by a different cow so to speak.

AFAIK, the team working on the expansion is completely separate from the team that wrote the current game. There is no point of having them fixing the bugs they had nothing to do with.