The thing that's always set Half Life apart was in how the story was told, pacing, and overall design philosophy. If you sit down and listen to developer commentary you'll see just how intricately crafted and thought out Half Life 2 was. As far as FPS go it's really hard to fault the game in any of those categories.

You have to remember that before Half Life FPS were essentially enemy conveyor belts where you just unloaded all your weapons constantly.

The answer to HL's success is much, much deeper than graphics and physics. Those 2 things are nothing more than a vehicle for a game, and Valve understands this probably more than any other developer in gaming.

The other thing besides previously mentioned (or just obvious at this point) things was the insane amount of modding done for it. The engine is a heavily modified Q1 engine, and id has always been about letting people fiddle with their stuff. Team Fortress Classic, They Hunger, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike, Riccochet, these and many many many more were mods from Half Life and contributed quite a bit to the game's success long after release.

As far as HL2's success, it came with CS:Source :P Honestly, though, generally speaking it followed Half Life's original design and pacing philosophy. It's not a beer and pizza FPS like Serious Sam or Halo or Quake 3. Like I said developer comments really open up your eyes and adds a whole new dimension to the game if you're wondering how to approach a game from a critical perspective.

Then at least love it or hate it you can appreciate and understand it a little better.

Edit: If it makes you feel any better Mario Galaxy will knock one of them out of the top 10, and one of those should represent Half Life 1 in spirit, which does deserve to be in any top 10 list.  

What I mean is...
Let's say Super Mario Galaxy is a top 10 game. Let's say the SMG box includes Mario 64.

Should this package now NOT be on the top 10 list because "it's not a game it's a bundle" or because "Mario 64 is already on the list"?

 lol, I see the :p, but I have to add something. It's funny that you say CS:S there because the Counter-Strike community as a whole is so resistant to change that they pretty much shunned CS:S when it came out. I don't know if it's changed as I haven't checked the Steam forums in like a year and I play CS:S from time to time, but not really enough. 

http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2005-08-17

Here we go, check out that link for a great G-mod comic on CS:S. Actually, there are like two or three before that one that are good too about CS:S. 

SMG could go in alone, as Mario is already in there.

Should Nintendo make a box set which has Mario64 and Zelda:OoT to claim the #1 spot?

Portal is an amazing game. HL2 isn't. I don't get the hype. Until Orange Box, I had never played a Half Life game. For the first couple of hours, HL2 was quite fun. Then I got in a boat. And drove it. And drove it some more. And more. And then some more. Then I stopped finally. Thank God, I can now move on. Then some asshole put a gun on the boat and forced me to captain it for another gruelingly dull adventure. I FINALLY got out of the boat. I played a bit more and realized I was becoming quite bored with HL2 and at this point, I now consider it a "average" shooter. In my opinion, the HL2 story is completely average. Period. I don't get the love. At most I'd give HL2 an 8. Tops. Portal? High 9s for sure... but it is a short game and wouldn't be worth 60 bucks on its own. To each his own I guess, but Halo 3, as a single player campaign, blows HL2 out of the water. There is no reason why "The Orange Box" should be a GOTY candidate nor should it be a 10 based on "content" alone.

Perhaps this is indicative of a new procedure that needs to be introduced -- reviewing each piece of content in the box on it's own merits. Value certainly goes up when you get so much in one game but GOTY should not have "Value" as part of the equation in my opinion. If the Orange Box were to win GOTY, what, exactly, wins? Which title(s)?

It's clear with ME, Halo 3, Bioshock. One game. One winner...

Ooh yeah. I remember the big stink, hence the :P at the end. It's pretty close to competition ready now regardless of what the average 13 year old sociopath (who can't even make it to CAL Main anyway) would have you think. The bulk of the legitimate complaints came from upper level CAL players, who rule the roost, and also have (in some cases) a financial intrest in keeping things exactly like they are. It had its problems but nowhere near as bad as they'd let you believe. There was bigger whine fest over moving to 1.4.

Edit: Another anecdote about the CS crowd--about 8 months ago there was a competition where everyone was playing with stock computers, which included an LCD capped at 60 frames per second. The CS community threw a monstrous fit over it, claming they couldn't play since they were used to 90-120 frames per second. Most people rolled their eyes "CS community", then some Dr. spoke up about how people like fighter pilots and yes, high level gamers CAN tell the difference between 60 and 100 FPS and it does screw them up. People talk about graphics but usually on PC you make the game as ugly as humanly possible to get above 100 FPS. It does screw with you something fierce. Ahh CS, never ending supply of riteous comedy.

I guess it goes back to the hardcore argument, too. Headshots are a ton easier than they were, and Powers Gaming (CS:S top team) losing to 3D (top tier CS team, without their main awper shaGuar) before the big Singapore world competition in 2006 further entrenched the old schoolers.

People can say what they want about the whole hardcore debate or whatever, but sticking with a game that ugly because it's the hardest to be good at should give them some hardcore lifetime "You will die a lonely virgin" hardcore gaming medal.

I used to play at the top end for Quake III, enough to keep me in a new computer every year. Best thing I did was step away from being a hardcore gamer, get a college degree, get a wife, get a Wii, and just sit on the sideline and giggle at the new crop of HARDCORE LEETSAUCE gamers. Old school CS still being around baffles me to no end, but then again Q3 is making a comeback with the failure of DOOM 3 and QUAKE 4 for being nowhere near competition ready for 1v1.

The AWP/AWM however, will always remain the bane of people still trying to figure the game out. I imagine 100 years from now when we're hooking our games into our brains and playing on holodecks CS will still be going strong, still be the most hardcore around, and STILL fighting over every patch that comes out "Yeah, 1.9843 sucks! I remember seeing grandpa's CS vids from 1.8573, now that was leet. Ban the AWP."

kn:

"To each his own I guess, but Halo 3, as a single player campaign, blows HL2 out of the water."

You're in the extreme minority on this, but as you say, to each his own. However I do like your avatar as Gears of War is my favorite console shooter ever.

Yes the boat segment wasn't the best in the game, it's the only part that felt like slog to me as where Halo bored me all the way through personally. Two very different types of FPS, though. As far as Serious Sam style FPS I do like Halo, for what it's worth.

Wow I can't believe the Half-Life 2 hate. I guess some people can only play run-in-gun shooters. omgwtfbbq I'm starting to doubt you ever played Half-Life 2. There was NEVER a group of badguys on a wooden ledge hanging over a cliff. Ever. I don't know what game you played, but the game I played had lots of creative puzzles and traps that could only be solved through ingenuity. Rarely was a puzzle repeated, although I admit by Episode 2's conclusion most of them had been used more than once.

Half-Life 2 isn't just great for it's graphics or physics, it's great for its design. It has creative level design and artwork. It's environments were diverse. Ranging from futuristic spires, to early 20th century villages filled with traps and puzzles, and even to sunny beaches. All of them were unique, and the level design was never repetitive. The plot was great, especially for a video game, and was very well paced, and it was absolutely a blast to play. Especially with the gravity gun.

I have to agree with naznatips about what made Half-Life 2 so great (I won't forget some of the puzzles in there, whew!), but for the rankings itself, I also have to agree that 3 times is way too much.

I don't think Half-Life 2 was the only game appearing more than once though; Resident Evil on GameCube and PlayStation 2 appeared on the rankings for quite some time as well.

In those cases, like epsilon72 said, I think the best thing to do is to create your own top 10 gamelist, like this everyone will be happy! =P

3 places is alot but half life 2 as an awesome game

I have been a half life player since the first game came out, and used to play hours and hours at a time wether it was the one player mode or online with the multiplayer. when half life 2 came out on pc I bought it and played it til I crashed my pc then I bought it for my xbox and played though the game 4-5 times then when I got my 360 and my regular xbox broke I played it though 3 more times then the orange box came out I bought that. all I trying to say is I am a man who gets bored of game fast if it dosent deliver on a lot of points like Halo its fun online but the single player leaves you to wonder if bungie has any kind of story elements in any of their games they have ever made. vale is amazing and thats all I half to say