[citation][nom]aftcomet[/nom]I loved Portal/2 but HL1/2/e were major "mehs" for me.[/citation]
I have to disagree. Portal 1 and the Orange Box in general were absolutely astonishing games, but from what I've played of Portal 2 so far, it really feels like a shameless sellout. Portal 2, in my opinion, tries way too hard to be as successful as the first, and instead just turns out to be insufferably obnoxious.
I miss the days of the Orange Box when three AAA titles were packaged into a single $50 purchase. (At that time TF2 was a great game, haven't cared for it since the introduction of the in-game store)
Since then, Valve has been doing great things (Mac, Linux, and mobile support, L4D, Source Filmmaker, improving the Steam client in general, etc), but I agree that the next HL installment is now long overdue.
I really hope that Valve doesn't let this community down and not only delivers on HL3/HL2EP3, but delivers the kind of quality that we have learned to expect from the series. So many franchises have been going down the shitter lately, I really don't want to see it happen to HL. If that means I have to wait for Source 2, then so be it!