Perhaps a few hours before the NDA on such content has actually expired, there's
a
Half-Life 2 preview on Gamesradar.com with a summary of the article in the
current print issue of
PC Gamer UK on the upcoming shooter sequel. The
preview includes screenshots and some quotes from Valve about the project, which
they say "has been in development ever since the original's release in
October 1998." Here's a bit:
The new storyline has been penned by
novelist Mark Laidlaw, the scriptwriter for the original Half-Life. Moreover it
will span 12 chapters, each estimated at three to four hours each, making it
even longer than the original game. The plot picks up an unspecified time after
Half-Life and assumes, not unreasonably, that you chose to work for the sinister
G-Man in the end, rather than be teleported back to the horrors of alien Xen. So
now you're working for the men in black, your research papers left rotting deep
within Black Mesa when you discovered your only option, bar certain death, was
to become gun-bitch to a suit.
Update: It seems that the NDA
Police got wind of this, and this article has now been yoinked.