find it mind boggling that someone thinks Outlaws and Outcast were better games than HL 2. I mean, they're both good games, but they don't have that epic cinematic quality present in HL 2.
Epic? What's epic about HL2? It found it to be fun and some action sequences exciting but not in any way was there anything epic about HL2.
Or do you describe "epic" as being 10 hours gameplay, character you don't care for and with who you only deal for 2 minutes during the whole game, sporting a rather non-existing story about aliens capturing humanity and cruising with buggies for about 10 levels. If you call that epic, than yes, I have to agree HL2 is game of epic proportions.
Anyway, you should directly compare a 8-year-old game with a modern 40 millions dollar gaming title like HL2. Old games like Outlaws cannot offer anything near the shear amount of production valve of a A-title like HL2. Nevertheless Outlaws was incredible fun game with an almost flawlessly balanced gameplay, story, game development which is one of the problem of HL2. The quality is not consistent through the game.