The majority of comments were because it was said the delay was caused by the theft, when in fact delay was because content was nowhere near being finished. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who's lying to you.
Well, I've heard conflicting stories on just how far along they were. The fact is 5 years worth of work was stolen, and I would imagine it was HUGE job to rewrite major portions of the code that could be sabatoged by hackers. On top of the fact that Valve had to spend additional time and resources meeting with law enforcement. Plus, the side effect of losing 5 years of blood, sweat, and tears in an instant I would imagine was VERY demotivating to the entire team. How would you like to hear that incomplete copies of your game were being shrink wrapped and sold in places like Russia and the Ukraine, both outside of American jurisdiction? The Valve code theft was not like the Doom 3 beta leak, it was their entire fucking code base, 5 years of work. It was/is a big, huge deal and frankly I'm sure it added a great deal of time to the delay of the game. Don't believe otherwise.
Sometimes I don't know why/how gamers do it. Publishers as a whole are the most selfish, cruel, immature, thankless bunch of people around. Everything revolves around the mighty dollar, and heaven help you if you're a gamer who actually believes their interest is in your entertainment.
Great, so take it out on the publisher, not the damn developers, especially not developers like Valve who have given so much to the gaming community to be treated like shit for missing a release date. It's not the fucking end of the world, but pimply faced gamers with zero life need to bitch and moan endlessly about a missed date. So what, it's a fucking game, it's not a cure for cancer, and if it's a year late so be it. If it's two years late so be it.
On a side note, not every gamer is a selfish prick. It was actually a bunch of them who helped Valve track down the asshole responsible for the code theft. Some people do care, and do have more than their own interest at stake. I sincerely hope the fucking loser is sentenced to the maxium allowable for that type of crime. As far as I'm concerened I wouldn't care if rotted in prison for the rest of his life.