^Note that my previous post mentions Half Life, the 1998 one. That's when the design choices were made. Half Life 2 inherited the silent protagonist and all of the previous game's phylosophy.
And while the gunplay in HL2 might not be as exhilarating as FEAR's, the action is overall extremely well paced. And the physics and the use of the gravity gun again showed how much new life you could cram into an old-style FPS without changing the rules of the genre.
As for the protagonist, I can't agree in the least. When Gordon moves, it's always because I want him to. If Gordon spoke, he wouldn't say what I want. Hearing him say a few canned sentences written by the authors would make him not me and not enough of a person anyway.
The other characters in the game respond exclusively to how you behave, and that's perfectly consistent with the design of the game. The choice made was that of giving you a pure first person and completely immersive experience.
