^The thing is that I'm talking of innovations in storytelling that Half Life introduced in 1998, when the state of FPS games was that of Quake 2, Blood, Sin. And since then Valve stood by their choices for the whole series, and rightly so to convey a coherent narration.
Those choices might not be groundbreaking today because they broke ground eleven years ago, but they still retain all their value. Some of them like strict first person narration have been widely adopted since, others like relying on the player's curiosity and attention to details instead of explicit exposition of plot points not so much, sadly.
And really, I've already explained that freedom has nothing to do with it, nor has the linearity of Half Life games. Why reiterate?
If you don't appreciate the thing of beauty that is the rigorous design of Half Life games inside a very minimalistic gameplay scheme, I can't really help you. I've already explained what I and many others appreciate of those choices.
