Although I do not think HL2 is a bad game I don't agree with your post.

"Up until this point every shooter I’ve played since Goldeneye and Perfect Dark has not kept me interested. It’s been like a struggle and a pain to just finish the game. But not Half Life 2."

I find it is the complete opposite for me, both HL(1) and HL2 kept me so uninterested it was ridiculous. It took me about 1 month to beat HL and HL2 took about 3 months. I just didn't want to play it because it was so boring. My two favorite FPSs are Crysis and Bioshock and I'll explain why:

Crysis: The landscape is just so huge I just felt so free, the gameplay changes everytime you play the game. Either you can snipe the ennemies in the base or you can use a machine gun and go Rambo on their ass or just try sneaking in without getting detected etc. In HL2 you can play the game over and over and each time will be pretty damn similar to what you did the time before.

Bioshock: It just amazed me. I hadn't seen an FPS like this before. The weirdness of the game, the screwed up ennemies and how you would get to know each character in the game so well and could choose yourself what to think about them. HL2 just reminded me of a pretty plain game with nothing really different.

I'm not saying HL2 isn't a great game because it was I just don't think it deserves a score over 8.5, even less to be called the best game ever.

I think you need to look up amateur and professional matches then... if there are still videos... if not CS matches can be a good replacement search since they require just as much planning on who covers whose back while doing w/e the objective is.

No only is UT2004 where personal skill is most evident and can't be covered by crutches and stuff, at the same time there is a ridiculous amount of startegy, especially in the Onslaught and Assault modes. As ssj12 said, watch some videos of pros and you will see some very heavy startegy going on. One on the scale of the Battlefield games in fact. Also on the 1v1 scale there is also a ridiculous amount of strategy, you just have to be fast enough to think and execute it.

P.S. UT original came out 3 years before Halo ever saw the day of light.

Haha,
dude you just found the wheel.
HL2 is a 2004 game and for its time was the best, beating all other competitors. Just as first Half Life do. Blood 2, Sin, etc. Do you remember them? They were good games, but Half Life come and winnow them. 50 Game of the Year awards! Guinness World Records "Best-Selling First-Person Shooter of All Time". This game was so great. Counter Strike start as a shy mode and after one year beat Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. There was more players plaing HL:CS then Q3 and UT combined.

HL2 face more competition. Halo 2, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Far Cry, Painkiller, Battlefield Vietnam, The Chronicles of Riddick, Killzone, Medal of Honor:PA, Joint Operations and etc. Even with such solid competitors HL2 win 35 Game of the Year awards and Guinness World Records award for "Highest Rated Shooter".

If you played games in chronological order - Half Life and Half Life 2 are the best in FPS area. It is stupid to go back and to compare them with new games like Gears 2 or Resistance 2. Console owners will never fill the real taste of Half Life 2. The Orange Box comes 3 years after PC gamers appreciate it. If you like it in 2007, then imagine you playing this game in 2004. I'm sure you get what I mean.

You deserve a medal sir.

As for the op statement.  Maybe.  I still have have a special place for goldeneye/ N64 perfect dark (I'm old...). Other than that ya. best fps by far.

i will have to completly disagree, although half life 2 is a good game.

the problem i had with it, is that there was to many stagnant sections, like the part when u are on the hover boat going through the sewer tunnels near the begining, or the sections when u have the buggy. i thought they was boring.

another promlem i had with it, is the game was to long for a shooter.

As the OP said, It depends what you enjoy and this is where an individuals opinions will come from.

My all time great 1st person shooters are: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Serious Sam 2 and now the addition of R2.

The way I see it is quiet simple. To me, before anything else a game does, it should fulfill its purpose. The same goes for video games or anything else in the world. I'll give a few examples.

1) A comedy film - before it has a great plot or a great cast, it has to have the humor. The humor is key.
2) Mobile Phones - As many applications as a phone may have and how sexy it may look, they key for a phone being good is its connectivity. Like the Iphone, it may be the best gadget in the world, but now it is being sued for not being able to fulfill its primary duty to minimum legal requirements - connectivity.
3) FPS - they are meant to be shooters; blowing things up, shooting people, shooting things and making it all fun. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

I have played Half Life and I enjoyed it, but to me, it lacked shooting. When I play a FPS, I expect there to be a lot of gun fights and explosions. It may take the form of comedy (Serious Sam), take the horror approach (Doom), take the adventure approach (HL), take the Sci Fi approach (Halo), but as long as it does the FPS well, everything else should fall into place.

To me, there are a lot of games that do the FPS better then HL. This is just my opinion though. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark managed to blend the 2 perfectly and keep true to the FPS genre. This is why to this day, I still rank them the best. Serious Sam is just Serious fun with a good sense of humor. No need for mega puzzles or the like, it is just pure fun. GeoW is 3rd person, but for arguments sake, if we are to compare, GeoW does the shooting more justice then HL IMO and it does so with a lot of fun. It may seem repetitive, but damn is it engaging and fun to do.

The same goes with R2. I don't know how anyone can say it doesn't have any great moments. Those Boss battles and those giant set scenes are WOW all the way through. Even the sections when the human infected Chimera's jump out of their pods when the entire town is covered in them and they come after you an hordes popping out from everywhere. It has several WOW factors to me.

As an adventure game though, I don't think anything out there can beat the original adventure game of them all - Zelda. Half Life to me does a decent job of bringing in some adventure with some shooting. however, it doesn't do both to its fullest. There are shooters who shoot better, there are adventure games that have better adventure elements. Imo, I still think Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are the only 2 games who managed to blend the 2 elements perfectly.

oh not this again...

How far did you get before you quit?

I fully agree! These days, everything is a copy of something or another. Doesn't mean it is no good. In fact, one could argue that sequels are copies of the original :p

MK was a copy of many beat em ups and fatalities came if I'm right on Eternal Champions first.

Tekken is a copy of VF, All 3d racing games are acopy of BALLZ, all 3d shooting games are a copy of VC and so on.

Remember, we are not looking for excuses to discredit other games. We are just giving opinions on what we think are the best FPS and we should stick to that.