Main benefit is the recompiled maps having a much improved draw distance so grass doesn't just appear in front of you like it used to, which was really the only major sign of age on the original game. I'm not always a fan of how the colored lighting changes the mood of some scenes though, I preferred Half-Life 2 with a bleak eastern-european feeling environment which is tarnished somewhat with the splashes of bright orange and blue in places.

I was willing to forgive the bizarre choice of YouTuber commentary if it was at least insightful but really doesn't provide more than short, surface-level development facts written like a student project. Ironically YouTube analyses have done a better job and stealing clips from those would give you a better commentary track. Commentary nodes are also far too short and frequent so it's really just an interactive bullet-point list.

It might seem like I went in hard on two quite small aspects but really that's all this offers. Still a valid way to play one of the best FPS campaigns of all time but the original is still being updated to work on modern systems.