Wow! I'm not sure where to begin with this one. I can see why people hold this series in such high regard.
I'll be approaching this from someone who started the Half Life 2 series coming from Black Mesa, so others in the same boat might know what to expect.

First of all
There are some marks of an older game that might be a little frustrating, but understandable when first stepping off Black Mesa.
First, your flashlight and sprint are run off a mechanic called Auxiliary Power, which drains as you use either one, and takes a second to recharge. It was a bit jarring coming off the game where sprint and flashlight were infatuate, but I can understand from the thought of this having more horror elements. As well as a potential lore reason, which is that in this game you don't have the resources of the Black Mesa facility. So your suit doesn't have access to nearly as much power.

Another is that there are times where you may get a weapon or item that you only use once, or the item you're given may not be very clear in how you're suppose to use it.
Example: With out spoiling anything, one of the throwable items you get, really only work if you are around a specific type of enemy, after that, they are basically useless.
Another is a near end game enemy, that seems to have a very specific weak spot, and you can find it if you are paying attention, but can be easy to miss, and waste resources on.

Other then that, the game play is amazing! I can definitely see where Black mesa got its inspirations for its level changes, the chase scenes and combat of this game are crazy exciting for a game that's 20 years old at the time of writing.
Valve uses the physics engine quite a bit in this game too, puzzles and environments make you navigate through them by moving items with the gravity gun, or by figuring out your environment, which is really cool, and makes you take in the whole level, rather then just the path you're suppose to follow.
The weapons are satisfying and punchy, and the combat more or less makes you run into the fray and think on your feet, nothing to the level of Doom Eternal, but enough to where you start to ensnarement and plan out which enemies you'll be taking out in which order.

The horror elements of the game can actually be a little frightening, especially around the half way mark, where you're introduced to a set of new creatures in an environment that is definitely reminiscent of Left 4 Dead.
Making you forget you're badass physicist Gordon Freeman for a bit, and have you looking around every alley way to make sure somethings not going to jump at you. Literally.
It also helps that this level gives you a bunch of saw blades, and not a lot of ammo, giving you a since of gritty dystopian horror that helps with the atmosphere.

The story of the game is honestly really interesting, best described as a 1984 approach to cosmic horror and natural disaster. It has you, Gordon Freeman, waking up from stasis, due to one of the events from the previous game, and finding that the entirety of the human race has been enslaved by a militia of interdenominational Aliens known as the Combine, and has you navigating a familiar world, plagued with this unknown "big brother" controlling the citizens and abusing their power over the humans they've enslaved. They also seem to hold a scary amount of knowledge and power as they use aliens from the last game to frighten, subdue and kill the unruly rabble. They also have enslaved the Vortigaunt, again. I honestly feel really bad for those poor bug eyed buddies.
On top of all this, it seems that what ever otherworldly entities that had a hand in the events of Black Mesa, still have uses for you, Gordon Freeman. You get the constant since that there is much more going on in the back ground of this dystopia, and are given a few mind bending details throughout the game, without ever truly spelling things out for you.

All and all, I can see the hype, the only down sides are the aforementioned dated and jarring elements of the game, and the fact that the story could be mildly confusing at points, but in cosmic horror fashion, that is part of the point of the story its self.
I give it a 3.5 out of 5 for fun mechanics, an interesting story and fun combat, but the lack of music in certain parts, the confusing nature of parts of the story, and single use or difficult to understand tools leave a bit to be desired. Good thing there are still 2 more games! I can;t wait to see what's in store.

This was fun. Bopl Battle is Smash Brothers meets Worms with all the chaos that you can imagine. It offers your slime ball a few abilities and lets you combine up to three of them to create as much chaos as you can and crush your friends into a giggling puddle.

It makes a great party game with friends, but as a small indy game it doesn't offer much more then that, do don't buy it expecting solo challenge runs, extra game modes, or online play with random people. How ever, this was made by one person and the price makes it worth it to pick up a few copies for you and a few friends. Grab some beer (if you're old enough) some snacks and don't choke as you laugh your ass off watching a bunch of little slimes battle in a very silly fun death match full of explosions, chaos, and Jojo level abilities.

Edit: As of the April 26th update, you can now play with randos online.

This was such a good game! One of the rare times that a shooter x an RPG managed to work.
The parkour element was simple and smooth, and combat felt good.
Even the horror elements of not staying out past dark worked to build tension, and the monsters were enough to keep you on your toes but not so frustratingly powerful that it took away from the fear factor.

This game was also amazing with friends, even if the models were a little stiff. The combat translated really well to multiplayer and running around at night to complete the more dangerous missions as a group just worked.
Honestly, even though Dying Light was well received it feels underrated.

Vampire Night is a strange game.
It was an on rails, arcade light gun game available as an arcade machine and for the play station 2.
This game is a mix. The game play is fun, especially if you manage to find the game in an arcade, the game play is straight forward, shoot the thing, shoot away to reload.
The story is the standard vampires invade a Romanian village. How ever the game does add a contemporary fantasy element by making the game take place in 2006. The art style was a cool devil may cry meats castlevania. But the voice acting, oh god the voice acting is absolutely awful. How ever, its so awful, it's fun. The dry flat lines with poorly translated English make for hilarious situations.
Fun to play, especially if you can find it in an arcade, or find a way to replicate the light gun game play for the home port.
And incredibly fun to make fun of.

Vindictus (Or Mabinogi Heroes) is a multiplayer hack and slash RPG that has elements of character action games, and souls likes in it's combat system, with physics based puzzles, levels and combat responses from enemies, and physics based feedback to armor and weapon degradation on the player side.

On the story side of things it mostly played out as a visual novel with a digital oil paint art style and took heavy inspiration from Irish lore.

It was a fun enough game to play as a dungeon crawler with friends, but unfortunately it suffers from a stupid thing that it seems a lot of MMOs and online RPGs do, and that was the fact that the early chapters got nerfed hard, and the story up to season 3-4 is now way too easy and kinda boring.

It's still got a fun combat system and is worth investing some time into with a couple of pals, especially if you like other character action games, or dungeon crawlers like diablo. But the first couple chapters with be stupid easy, with a sharp difficulty curve on chapter 3. Honestly I don't know why games like this nerf their early story stuff, if you want to get players through it so they can join the vets, just make a referral program to allow them to make a higher level starting character if they have a friend at that level for crying out loud.

I also believe this game was developed on the Source engine, which may be the cause of a few connectivity bugs, but its a good engine and I wish more games used it.

Can't review this on steam because I don't even want to put this on my computer again.
Look, the bad design started before all this, back in Overwatch late 2017, around the time they started marketing to the E-sports crowd, rather then the actual player base. Since then, Overwatch slowly devolved and Overwatch 2 is just a giant money pit of micro transactions and "skill based" algorithm lobby hell. Sitting on a pile of PVE, and story content promises that old fans were excited about because we didn't want to play PVP due to the uptick in toxic player base, and never got because Blizard decided it wouldn't make them as much money.
What happened to server lobbies where the "skill based" algorithm wasn't absolute garbage and you could, I don't know, Talk to people and learn to play the game? Instead of listen to a bunch of brain dead baboons screech into their microphones before being kicked by the game to a whole new lobby of crazy.
Just, for the sake of your own sanity don't play this.

This has to be one of my favorite devil may cry games overall!
The energy of DMC 3, the combat variety of DMC 4, gorgeous visuals and a killer soundtrack! It even took some of the good aspects from 2013's DmC in it's platforming, enemy placement and contrasting colors.
The game is no where near as difficult as devil may cry 1 or 3. But I would say is a hell of a lot more fun, with boss stages to match.
The story is simple, and you can see the plot a mile away. But honestly, simple doesn't mean bad if you are invested, and this game gives enough play investment and emotional context/resolution that it shouldn't matter.
Also, yes, the Vergil DLC is worth it.
If you are a fan of Devil May Cry, of other Character Action games, or want to get into the series I would highly recommend picking this one up!

Well that was an experience and a half! While I've never played the original half life, I wanted to catch up on the story before playing what has been argued as one of the best games ever made.
Now that I've played this, I can see why half life 2 is so hyped up!
The game its self is a great shooter with a few bugs, as expected of the source engine. And while I've never played the original, I watched a walk through to see the differences between the games. My conclusions:
Xen was indeed a bit longer then it needed to be, but Black mesa's Xen was much more fun then the buggy landscape of Half Life seemed to be, and it gave some clues to the story of half life 2.
Some of the combat sequences like Forget about Freeman, needed the change, and in Black Mesa, Forget about freeman was one of the coolest video game fights I've ever been in!
Gonarch is still a bitch, and the end boss was more scripted then it was in Half Life, but it made you feel absolutely awesome. Which I think was the entire point of this remake/highlight. To make you, as Gordon Freeman, feel like you live up to the hype of your character.
I can't bloody wait to play half life 2!