Half-Life 2 is the game of the DECADE!

[Scoobes]

Mazty said:

Good friends with a mute after 10 minutes...Doesn't sound much better. 
Well if the conversation is implied, then where does filling in gaps end? If it's not there, it's not there. Arbitrarily filling in the blanks is pointless. Using your "imagination" is just an excuse rather then a legitimate reason - for any plothole or case of bad acting I could use my imagination to fill in the blanks/iron out the issues. In CoD you are a soldier so it makes a lot of sense that you don't speak. Plus the CoD stories are hardly praised, in fact MW2 was a complete joke. If I wanted to use my imagination, I'd go and day dream. 

You are nevertheless praising a game for it's story even though the vast majority of the game has nothing to do with any sort of deep storyline. That puts HL2's story on par with most FPS' stories. Praise the storytelling mechanism as much as you want, but again, that's like having a Ferrari with an empty tank. 

10 minutes? The friendship develops throughout the entire game. I'm pretty sure if someone (even a mute) is pivotal in rescuing your father that you'll treat them as a friend. 

Anyway, whether you like it or not, it's legitimate storytelling technique. Older RPGs and older story heavy games in general relied heavily on a players imagination for the simple fact the technology wasn't available at the time. In fact, games like Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate are often praised for their story but had little to no animations and relied on the player to fill in the technological gaps. Whilst HL2 doesn't have those limits, the use of player imagination to fill in gaps is only because everything is shown directly to the player in First-Person. Everything is directed to you so your imagination/character is placed directly into the Gordon Freeman avatar. It's kinda like reading a book written in first person.