The article makes some very good points, but where I have to take deference with it is that the author seems to be taking the "gameplay > narrative" attitude that most game snobs do all the time and dismissing the legitimate concerns of HL2 fans. At least he did acknowledge that HL2 ended on a cliffhanger, but to me that places some bit of responsibility on the game developer to deliver on the promise of a cliffhanger to it's fans. Last time I checked, Half Life 2 is the #1 selling PC game of the last decade and it's been 6 years since Valve left it's fans hanging. People have a right to bitch, IMHO. My concern is that this game has been so highly anticipated, that it can never live up to it's expectations at this point. Valve may have painted itself into a corner by waiting so long... Either that or they are waiting for technology to evolve to adequately portray HL3.
They'll release it the same day they release Oculus Rift support for Steam. It'll be in beta for a while (oculus rift support) and HL3 will be early access, but they'll both officially release the same day officially. But seriously, that's not that far fetched. They've been launching games along with new services as a way to show off that new service. People were suggesting that it might be SteamOS exclusive or just free for SteamOS users, but that just seems crazy.
