Legendary sequel to the legendary game. I quite enjoyed this one aswell, I personally don't have a hard preference for HL1 and 2, there are things I like about both, I like the claustropohic feel of HL1, while I like the bigger cinematic scope of HL2. The jump is quite real as you can tell, while I like the vibes of the Betas more, the final story is still really good and the themes about oppression and alien invaders and sellouts like Breen is really good, can't forget the rebellion and all the alien stuff of course. Animations are still gorgeous and it's amazing a game like this could exist pre-7th gen, tho it was just a year before 360 and 2 before PS3.
Worst aged thing is the textures and it feels like they got rid of having an artstyle for the sake of simple realism, I don't think it's bad at all but moving forward yeahh...could look more lively, either way I'm sure there are many texture mods adressing this, but frankly I don't need em.