Technicaly it can be finished in 30 minutes. http://speeddemosarchive.com/HalfLife.html#hardscripts

I know that is not the point, speed runs are not a good way to tell a game lenght. Also when they say COD 4 is 5 hours long, I bet they are talking about the average player. it took me 12-15 hours on my first try to finish HL. I still think that there is no excuse for COD 4, most FPS on PC look better than on consoles, have extra content (stages, maps, guns), offer decent to awesome online free experience and go for U$ 50.

How long did CoD1 supposedly take? Because I loved the single player on that, I still replay it from time to time.

I'd rather have 6 hours of awesome game than 12 hours of not so great games.
Does anyone know how long Mass Effect is suppose to last? I hope it will be much longer.

Can anyone say "rental?"  Not that time is everything, you can beat Contra in ~20min. It was $45-$50 back in the day. But Ill admit one normally expects more this day and age.  5-6 hrs just doesnt cut it anymore.

Yeah, I'm not talking about speedrun time, I'm talking about first-run time.  I assume that's what reviewers are talking about when they say COD4 takes 5-6 hours, too.  I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable.  Half-Life 2 Episode 2 takes 5-6 hours, and it's billed as a mini-game, not a full game.  The Orange Box costs $50, less than COD4, and comes with Episode 2, Portal (which is another 4-5 hours, plus more to complete the challenges, which aren't just achievements), and TF2 for a full multiplayer experience.  Not to mention it comes with HL2 and Episode 1 if you don't already have those.  And some people still think it's a ripoff.  :P

Seriously, if I paid $60 for a game and it was over in 5 hours, I'd feel incredibly cheated. 

5-6 hours hasn't cut it for a long time. There are times that I could make an exception. If those 5-6 hours were just mind-blowingly awesome, but other than the graphics the 5-6 hours of this seem to be mind-blowingly average. Again, I think making games this short is just an excuse for lack of creativity on the developer's part.

I don't understand the problem in this thread, you guys are all SP guys and your bitching about a MP game. If you buy a MP game for SP then there is something wrong with you guys. Do you guys buy BF and bitch that there is no SP.

CoD4 has 4 difficulty levels, at about 5 hours each that sure seems fine. Along with 500 hours of online, that sure sounds bad for my $60. Zelda:tp 45 hours, MP3 15 hours. I don't know about you guys but it looks like you guys are only getting part of a game.

Call of Duty has had one of the best WWII single player experiences for ages, and a lot of people are looking forward to how they transition this into a modern setting. The SP in the game has been critically hailed as adding a very cinematic and as doing an excellent job of making you feel like part of the war.

You may have bought the games for MP, but plenty of people bought them for SP. This may change given how lacking it is in that department. All I can say is that those 5-6 hours better be the most intense FPS experience I've ever had, and with nearly limitless replayability.

5-6 hours SP is a joke for any game that cost $50-60.

I remember when this happened in the PC industry years ago... back in the old days, Quake2, Unreal1, Deus Ex, etc would take you a good 20 hours to beat the single player.  Then all of a sudden, when Max Payne came out, 10 hours of single player was acceptable.  Then later, 7 hours became the standard single player length.

Now it's happening to console games.  This is sad.

Developers only care about graphics... and not depth & gameplay. They spend too much time on art and not enough on ideas and level design.

Well, at least we have vendors that provide rented games like Gamefly and Gottaplay now... We don't have to waist our money on half developed games.  Try before you buy...

You do realise that this is just a rumour, although it is described as very short. The length is not actually specified. I would guess that it will be 8 hours, probably 10 with some deaths