This game knows what it is (comic sci-fi B-horror), is very good at being what it is, and doesn't try to be anything more than that. Which is all I ask for in a narrative, really.
It also has the best argument for how to handle a silent protagonist in a first-person game, framing the player character as comically underappreciated—Gordon Freeman has a Ph.D., but here he is, pushing a cart while other scientists condescendingly tell him very basic things—until the player proves that they can handle what the game throws at them.
(Which makes it all the weirder that Half-Life 2 abandoned this idea in favor of GORDON GORDON YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE GORDON YOU ARE JESUS GORDON. Seriously, Portal is a better "Half-Life 2" than Half-Life 2.)
It also has the best argument for how to handle a silent protagonist in a first-person game, framing the player character as comically underappreciated—Gordon Freeman has a Ph.D., but here he is, pushing a cart while other scientists condescendingly tell him very basic things—until the player proves that they can handle what the game throws at them.
(Which makes it all the weirder that Half-Life 2 abandoned this idea in favor of GORDON GORDON YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE GORDON YOU ARE JESUS GORDON. Seriously, Portal is a better "Half-Life 2" than Half-Life 2.)