I think HL2 was a better game than Far Cry, in that it wasn't quite as dumbed down as Far Cry was. More high brow.
But I think I had more fun with Far Cry. Granted I played HL2 on a laptop that was being pushed to its limits and I played Far Cry on a beast of a desktop, but HL2 had moments that just seemed to be bad, like your initial return to City 17. Far Cry had moments like that, but they were far shorter. There were fewer times that I turned it off and walked away until the next day.
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