I wouldn't play the game over again because I don't find it very buggy and the quests are all the same. However, there are consequences for killing NPCs. The first is my personal guilt through role playing. I've only "murdered" 1 NPC the entire game. Secondly, if you kill some NPCs their quests will be closed off. If you mass kill an entire town you'll have a lot fewer quests. The best example of this is the evil guild that approached me after I murdered that 1 guy. They tried to recruit me, but knowing it was evil, I killed the guy. What happened? The entire quest line closed off! I thought that was so awesome I kept playing without loading back. That does give me a reason to replay to see what the evil quest line is about. Also, this hasn't been a problem since I lowered the difficulty (the game was simply taking to long), but when it's around medium keeping NPCs alive in certain quests helps you get through them. There are several quests that require teamwork with AI. I've completed enough quests with guilds that I can now recruit people to help me as well. I haven't finished the main storyline yet, but all stories are linear. I suppose it could have had branching paths for evil characters, but there's a quest line for that. I can see after 170+ hours how people could find the game boring, but I still have fun sometimes just walking around and exploring. To me, it's more fun than a supposedly "adventure" game like Metroid Prime where every area is very limited and you are usually just exploring to make it to the next area or get the next upgrade to get to the next area.

Half-Life was IMO amazing for its time in 1998, Half-Life 2 took a while but was pretty great in 2004. Now it's 2008 and I see nothing special like I would have expected from a Half-Life 3. IMO they are no more at the forefront of development, mainly floating on past reputation. For example as for PC developing companies Crytek seems far more ambitious and far more adaptive towards new technology.

Steam is mainly a content deliverly implementation, this implementation may be good and popular but the technology is IMO nothing revolutionary.

It was six years between HL1 & 2. Expecting Valve to release HL3 in four years when they're still working on episodic content is unfair. Left4Dead looks pretty amazing and has a good chance of changing the way online shooters are played.

Nintendo. Ever since the gamecube era they've been giving us nothing but crap and spin offs. Nonetheless the memories of the glorious 8, 16 and 64 bit Nintendo still looms in the shadow of their tarnished image.

They did Half-Life 1 in less than 2 years. By hiring some extra talent it should't be impossible.

Left 4 Dead doesn't look like a gerne defining or revolutionary game to me at all, nothing like Half-Life was. What I have seen and know about from Resistance 2 and Killzone 2 looks far more ambitious. I am looking foward to what the Crytek team can come with on consoles as well.

I think people coming to Valve's defense IMO makes the case of being over-rated stronger.

Ah, no wonder I have fun playing games. I just haven't played enough of them! And you also assumed correctly that I only play Mario games, and when I play those Mario games I play it so I can hear "Whoooooo hooooo it'sa me'a Mariooooo" (A treat to the ears everytime, let me tell ya).

Ah well... it's your opinion. Glad you enjoy the Halo series and Dynasty Warriors 2,3, and 4. (Ba ZING!)

Tell me why Killzone 2 is ambitious or revolutionary. I don't know enough about Resistance 2 yet, and I do know it will have some massive battles, but Killzone 2? Just looks like an average shooter to me...please prove me wrong, because I honestly would like to know more about the game.

Just because Valve is not on the bleeding edge of graphics doesn't mean they're not ambitious. Crytek's engine work is impressive...but who cares if no computer can reasonably play it? I think they did a sh*t job on that part.

TF2 is freaking amazing in my opinion...the amount of work put into the balance of the game is extraordinary...just watch one of the videos about why they worked with each kind of shader, lighting, etc...I don't see that attention to detail in most other developers.

Left 4 Dead is very revolutionary to me. A 4 player co-op shooter might not sound that revolutionary to you, but how many games have done it? Successfully?  I think Left 4 Dead is going to do it better than Halo 3 or Haze or anybody else, due to the balance work that Valve does, and because the game is COMPLETELY tailored for co-op, it's not just an option. Plus, it has zombies. Zombies.  A co-op game against an actual horde of zombies, controlled by a smart AI director that will work on ANY custom map, headed by a team of player-controlled super zombies?  Seriously, this should be game of the year.

Square Enix or EA.

Left 4 Dead is my second most anticipated game the rest of this year behind Starcraft 2. Blizzard and Valve are as close as any developers have come to flawless IMO. I'd put Nintendo right behind them. Not because their games are flawless (certainly not even close to Blizzard or Valve's perfection), but because they are just so damn fun, and Nintendo is one of the few companies left who recognizes the importance of fun above all else.