Well, they are definately shipping this summer and I'm quite interested in who will win the most games of the year between Doom3 & HL2.
The shaky cam movie was pretty long, pretty terrible for viewing, yet showed a lot more in the implementation of minute details than I had believed before. I think that this series of delays was to our benefit.
Most importantly, Valve seems to have upgraded everything Half-life to HL2. So HL1 is going to be on HL2. Counter-strike of course. Team Fortress 1. It's pretty incredible.
So far, if I had to make a choice, I would have to go with HL2 because they are giving far more game content to us.
The game itself appears to have a slightly different flavor to it and looks to be more compatible than ever for mid-range systems which should really appeal to the average gamer. At this point, I'm willing to release my old preconceived notions on the Valve team and give this a star of approval because it really seems to be a bigger game with lots to do if you just want to walk around.
One of the more interesting things I saw was how the "police" seemed to be interested in Gordon as he passed the room that they had broken into. One of the cops came out and started saying something to him and Gordon ran upstairs to elude him. Later, of course, he's fighting them, so they must not be nice cops.
The other thing that captured my attention was the Valve seemed to drop their PG-13 rating and go for a more mature presentation. Gordon is flinging disc-cogs and cutting zombies in half, burning them up with fire so that they scream in agony, and meets up with a pair of hanging legs in some bizaare twist of cruelty of a previous torture and mutilation, which he of course attacks just because he can.
Another note of interest was how many people are out fighting the menace along side you or just revolting in unison as you deal with a life inside city 17. Incidentally, City 17 is a reference to the old Soviet Union's version of Las Alamos. You can look it up. They had a name for it, and they also gave it the name City 17.
The last thing that got me was how incredibly strong the striders are. Meeting one that focuses its attention on you is not going to be a nice thing to deal with.