[kupoartist]

Originally Posted by Chara

I hear you still play as gordon but you spend a lot more time with alyx. I was kinda hoping you would play as Alyx. You know... so we can learn a lot more about her and more about what exactly happened

this choice perplexed me and disappointed me a bit as well. Firstly, the final G-Man speech seemed to indicate that Freeman was being put on ice until the next job... but the next job turns out to be like 5 minutes later? Secondly, it breaks from the (IMO brilliant) convention of having the Half-Life Expansion / Episodes set at the same time as the main story, featuring new characters. I suppose it's partly because Valve themselves are doing the expansion - Gearbox were made to make the old expansions as the did partly out of necessity (lots of assets were resused from the original game to get it shipped quickly) and partly out of not being allowed to tamper with the story. Still, there were about 4 sources that heavily suggested that you'd play as Alyx in the first expansion... no such luck. Still, the implication from Valve appears to be that this is the first (or second, counting the Uber-Nerd only Lost Coast) of a number of episodes, so perhaps they'll have different lead characters?

Originally Posted by chara

(anything that happened between HL and HL2 are mostly guesses since HL2 really didnt do a good job in filling up the holes...)

Most of the guesses are more or less confirmed by the writers or the making of / strategy guide. I personally feel that I was able to understand exactly what was going on, even to the point that I really didn't like being led down the straight and narrow path and being made to make the Citadel explode in the first place! The lack of development is more a side-effect of the HL game's intrigue rather than a story deficency. The player's utter cluelessness is intentional, and it's more than likely the first of many games... I think the new episodes will flesh the City 17 timeframe out and then we'll move on to an even more clueless era, and slowly learn more about the big stuff - G-Man and Combine. Still, at a reported "33% of the length of the full game", i've got concerns about how much they'll get into Aftermath...

Wait... this is a Doom 3 thread?