Opposing Force with it's design reminded me of the Half Life 1 original Xen chapters design, it's not really good impression.

The premise of the expansion is interesting - we are playing as soldiers that covered up Black Mesa incident (well with exception that our squad still haven't recieved orders) and it's actually pretty cool premise. We play as colonel Shephard and the expansion starts with our plane crash landing into the facility and most of the squad dying.

This is of course Half Life, one of the best shooters, so it should play pretty well, right? Well, shooting is one part, because it needs to be supported by: enemies, level design and guns.
Guns are not really bad, some new additions are pretty fun, like: LMG, Sniper Rifle, Alien rocket launcher, Recharging electric eel and literally BFG. And they are all good with only one exception, but we will put pin in that as it's not really used in combat.
Enemies and Level Design is a mixed bag. Enviorment in this expansion is some of the best to look at, as it expands the facility in interesting ways, but most of the time the enviorments feel neither like realistic laboratory complex or enviorment that supposed to enhance moment to moment gameplay. Classic enemies that come from original half life are as fun to fight as ever, but new ones... aren't.

Most new enemies are annoying, with cheap damage and they are not supported with the poor level design, either areas are just corridors, labyrinth corridors or big open space, with minimal or no cover, or very prominent chokepoint; with very sparse health/armor pick ups which reminded me of the weakest aspect of Half Life 1

Some enviormental progression were obtusely communicated multiple times, especially the "barnicle gun" (remember that pin) and it's use for the enviormental traversal - I literally had to guess that alien sacks were also grapple points I could zip line into, as it was either not communicated, or it was very poorly communicated. I had numorous encounters with soft locks, that made progress nigh impossible - I had to use noclip to either know were to go, unstuck myself from elevators, get up to the intended vent that was too high to climb into, I died because of some hurt trigger with large damage that was on the floor.

Final boss was just annoying. No further comment on it.

Overall I never expected to dislike anything Half-Life, but Opposing Force just is the game I mildly dislike. While it is a well done product at the end of the day (despite my expierience with bugs), first ever game from Gearbox devs, which did pretty good job - I just prefer Blue Shift and other HL games. I am just a minority in that opinion because I see that most people really like Opposing Force, so still, give it a try if you haven't, it's usually very cheap so what it hurts, at least it's not bad.

Max Payne proves itself as an excelent Hard boiled Fugtive Cop experience.

A well shaked blend of moment to moment action and narrative of the deeply shaken cop, driven by vengence discovering a disturbing plot of control.

full of intrigue, a lot of very well executed bullet time action and thick atmoshepere similar to action movies like Matrix, Pulp fiction or Hard Boiled.

It may not be the best in terms of pure gameplay or shooting, but it worth to play not only to experience the cult classic, but also to see how Remedy started, and they started with a whisky and a bang.

let me just copy my review of half-life...

Half-Life Black Mesa is as classic as you can get... Wait a minute...

Black Mesa is a fan made remake of Half-Life, and to be honest, it's my prefered way to experience this classic.
Everything that made Half-Life great makes Black Mesa great.

Black Mesa still has the base of Half-Life's methodology "Run, Think, Shoot and Live", but it is enchanced with thoughtfull changes to controls and movement. Weaker chapters have been improved upon with more tuned level design; weapon tweaks make the whole arsenal more appealing and already excelent setpieces and excelent sequences were improved upon - something I thought was nigh impossible.

The pacing of the campain is excelent, from one encounter to another encounter, the flow of everything is on par or sometimes greater than in Half-Life. Still escaping the failing facility through it's different sectors, finding survivors and discovering more and more about the facility; it's still all there and witnessing the fallout of our actions is still captivating.

And Xen chapters itself are impressive - they are no longer bad!
Reworked and completely redesigned into something new while retaining most of the beats the original had and conveying them better than ever. Beautiful alien enviorment with sparse interference of Black Mesa temp-facilities scattered here and there, that are joy to explore and retaining all the level design principles and knowledge that Half-Life is known for.
Problem of slowly depleeting resources in later chapters are absent thanks to frankly good move to make scientists from overworld sent you care packages, making them actually help you.
Interloper chapter has still little pacing issue, but it is not bad as it is penultimate chapter and it being longer feels like final stretch to reach finale, so that basically resolves itself.

I would still highly recommend playing the original HL before Black Mesa to appreciate video game history and what an amazing game it still is. But Black Mesa is better and absolutely amazing. A worthwhile play!