Left 4 Dead was great fun, but I'm finding myself with less and less time to get together with friends to play. Espicially difficult since my friends live in different time zones. For the past couple of years, I've really increased my single player time, as I can sit down whenever and just play for how-ever long I have.

Episode 3 = big win for me,
another multiplayer game = meh.

I'll withhold judgement on Left 4 Dead 2 by waiting and seeing if any competent content comes out for Left 4 Dead.

Left 4 Dead is a barely complete game, and no, the Survival Pack didn't add anything to speak of. It added a gamemode and ONE new level. People haven't been complaining about the lack of Left 4 Dead gamemodes, they've been complaining about the lack of Left 4 Dead levels. The game should have had eight campaigns - that would've been worth $50.

In the end, complaints or praises, it is an open market system, and you never have to buy a game you don't like. The risk is, as always, with the game producers. I may grouse about delays, but most likely will end up buying and playing Episode 3 or whatever else relates to HL2 or beyond, anyway.

is this what valve really wants to say to us

Valve: sorry our beloved gamers, L4D1 was for testing purposes only. now this is the full game. thanks for for buying the first one anyway.

is this what valve really wants to say to us

Valve: sorry our beloved gamers, L4D1 was for testing purposes only. now this is the full game. thanks for for buying the first one anyway.

I think Valve needs to do something new with single player. Portal was cool but that was a one time thing methinks. HL2 was way too linear IMO and it's old news now to say the least.

I've never even played L4D. ;) I'm not into online FPS gaming. Only do LAN shooters, and haven't done any of that for like years now. So I'm almost entirely interesting in single player.

All I can say is, the amount of time I've spent with L4D is faaaar more than most games I buy, and for which I've often paid more money aswell. If this is a "rough draft", then Valve truly are Gods. And more content is coming for L4D, according to Valve, so it appears they haven't exactly abandoned it.

But yeah, I too am looking forward to Episode 3, but I believe that's another dev-team.

Adam pretty much sums up my thoughts:

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/696648/Sesslers-Soapbox-To-the-Le...

L4D(1) was the equivalent of a shareware title, only they provided Episode 1 of 3 and charged maximum rrp. Really mediocre game, and to top it off they've screwed their own customers. Certainly won't be buying the same game twice because they couldn't be stuffed finishing the first one properly. They've been holidaying on their Halflife spoils too long. Guess this is the result - greed.

What I loved and always will love about the whole Half-Life series from the start is the superlative, engaging, intriguing, and just plain fun single-player element that made these games what they were and are. Valve spent years of hard work between these releases, and HL2 just blew everyone's socks off since lots of us had supposed we'd seen the last of Valve post HL1...;) I think the raging success of the HL1/2 series is the direct result of all of that work and thought and *time* spent on story, plotting, pace, graphics and all of the rest of it.

Now, though, it seems like Valve is getting a bit long in the tooth and settling down into a "lets do less, make less, offer less and see if we can make more money!" sort of mind set. If Valve keeps going in this direction then eventually it will work the opposite for them of HL2 in the long run. We may well be seeing a Valve in contraction. That's just sad when we think of what might have been.

If Valve releases a Left 4 Dead game with the depth and scope of HL2, especially from the single-player vantage point, I'll buy it immediately. But 8-10 repetitive hours of mindless mayhem and carnage with canned dialogue and a "C" comic-book storyline? Not interested.

Wanted to add that I had a bellyful of that from id software--so much so that I won't buy anything they sell anymore. I refuse to be pandered to and patronized.

Cost Vs Time Spent playing = Value

L4D was good value for me even at full price as I got 100s of hours of game time out of it over the months I played. Look at a game like Tetris you don't need content to make a good game if the dynamics & gameplay of it work and keep you coming back for more.

That said I was disappoint about the number of levels, but it didn't stop me from playing and enjoying the game. But I won't be picking up L4D2 until the offers start.

Off topic, I think. The delays between Half Life 2's episodes are, indeed, taking the excitement away - until you are playing it again (steam be damned). I had the Orange Box - bought solely for HL2-2 - sitting here until this week. Once I picked it up, the excitement quickly returned and I am thoroughly enjoying this episode. You know, there's a year between Christmas seasons and longer between FF or Elder Scroll releases, and while we sort of forget about it for most of the year, when the season comes back, it's a lot of fun all over again. Some things are just worth waiting for, IMO.

I'm going to wait for the 15-20 euros offer this time around ; as long as that may take. Left for Dead 1 was a fun game, no doubt, but at 45 euros it was my worst ripoff in 22 years of gaming (and I had a SNES!).

And it's quite obvious how Valve has been spoiled rotten by many of us paying full-price for what amounts to a glorified mod, with the expectation of added content later on...

I feel the internet has opened up the door for a lot of big mouthed BS.
Who here is in a better position with more inside knowledge then Valve to decide what and they publish and when?
The internet has brought out the infants in all of us- "We want it this way..."
Geez, say thank you kindly for probably another mind blowing game by one of the world's best publishers.
Unless of course anyone in this thread is publishing a better game they coded any time soon, any takers? didn't thinkso.

I sometimes think that I paid too much ($60) for this game, but I do play quite a bit with my gaming friends. So I get my entertainment value from it.

As I read some of the comments, I seem to be in a minority when I say I really like this game and spend time on it. I have read that some refer to L4D as boring, not enough content. I will agree that it could use a little more content (give us at least one more full campaign please).

I just love the co-op nature of the game. I am not into hard-core military games so ARMA2 is not for me. The game-play in L4D is different than, say CoD4, where you can pop in a multi-player game, and not really feel like you are contributing to a team effort (well, that is my perception... to each their own). Now CoD4 has some game modes where team play is encouraged but is not as extensive and demanding as a L4D campaign or versus mode.

I am concerned about the original L4D community being compromised due to the sequel. I wonder how this will work itself out...I will put this idea out there, and I like to know what some of you may think of this: since there is a SDK being released for L4D, can't valve take the best made content and have it available for steam and XBox live on a consistent basis (I don't know... like, 2 campaigns every 6 months) as a user created content? I know some of you can poke holes in this one, but the question has to be asked.

I actually disagree. I don't think they could hold off announcing it -- rumours tend to win, and to be correct often enough with these things. I think they expected the negative response, and want to get it over with before the release date.

But on the original note, I hate that people are upset with this. I play L4D, and I play it often. It may not be as huge as some wanted, but it's plenty big. And the people I know that are upset without having to shell out more money, play the game at least 20 hours per week -- in three-game chunks at almost two hours per game.

At 20 hours per week, they see over 1'000 hours per year. At $50.00 for the game, they're looking at $0.05 per hour.

Honestly, who the hell cares.

Their argument really is that 5 cents is too much, but 3 cents would be cool? That's not an argument, that's just being crazy cheap.

Quite frankly, I think L4D actually saves me money. When I play with those friends, and get sucked into 5 hours in one night, I forget to eat. That saves me a few bucks in food. So there.

But in the end, it's greedy consumerism. Any game that's good enough for you to play, even 5 hours per week, for 250 hours per year, should satisfy you, independent of the reasonable cost. $50 per year for 250 hours is a whopping 20 cents per hour.

And 5 hours per week is more than most people spend on most hobbies. Golf is way more expensive in greens fees alone. Honestly, what isn't?

Valve easily deserves $50 per year from me. I'm happy for more/updated/additional/better content -- not because I think the current game is poor; but because I think it's great and I'd love even greater. I'm more than happy to pay for it.

If I weren't satisfied enough to pay for more, I wouldn't like the current game enough to play it at all, and I wouldn't care what happens going forward.

So stop complaining about a few bucks. Work one more day at McDonalds, and you can afford the $50 for another year. Be happy that you're getting something good, and don't argue with the cost.

Argue with the cost when you don't like the product, not when you do.

I purchased Left 4 Dead for like $15 - $20 when they had a weekend special. Which is what I have done with most of the games I purchase. I wait until someone has it on sale for 30% - 50% off. I have stopped buying games when they first come out b/c there have been too many disappointments lately with a $50 price tag

The game just doesn't look all that interesting compared to the first one. New characters and weapons and environment isn't enough to make me want to bother. Also looks too light. I guess I was kinda looking for *more* than just a reskin.

Dude, Dustin you're on a 3-blog winning streak with me. I will buy you a drink if you ever travel to Bellingham.

Every time I look at it, it seems like a foreign team statistic: "Left: 4 - Dead: 2"

I don't buy reasoning that the *already announced* content/features of L4D2 justify a sequel on the *PC*.
Releasing/updating a game for the PC is an incredibly flexible process, but this is not the case on the xbox. Throwing all of this content in an L4D expansion may not be feasible on the console. On the other hand, Valve has always been PC-centric and I don't want my PC games to be affected because they happen to be multiplatform releases.

Additionally, they haven't announced pricing / upgrade path. If L4D2 is $20 for L4D1 owners, I will be much happier about the whole thing.

I will not buy Lef4Dead2 because I already own Left4Dead, and I don't feel I would like to invest 100 bucks on two games that are so similar. I'm assuming that Left4Dead2 will be 50 bucks of course. I have no problem missing out on Left4Dead2, but the problem is the audience and content I expected from Left4Dead. This will outdate Left4Dead and so the potential for a game that develops the variety of content like TeamFortress2 has is already gone.
I would have preferred Valve take more time with Left4Dead2 and allow the community of Left4Dead to mature into a full fledged fully independent crowd.
One more thing, if they continue with the series I am guess the title will be Left4Dead3....then what? Left4Dead4?

Mountains....molehills....

All the vitriol this thing has "caused" says more about the authors than it does about Valve's decision.

L4D can't escape the fact that it's content is very limited. It feels like Valve were testing the water so to speak to see if it was worth pouring more resources into developing what should be the full game, in L4D2.

And yeah, where the hell is Episode 3?

Far-reaching changes to level design, reworking of the AI director, new melee weapons, new special infected...
All of those changes that don't justify a new game and could have easily been released in a $20 add-on.
If you gave a good mod team the ability to do the same changes, they would have done it for $10 or even free.

That said, I never bought the original game, I played 6 hours during the free weekend and got bored to death - because there's simply not enough content there in the first place.

L4D is dead to me now, ARMA2 is my new CoOp God!

They need to pick up the pace with theTF2 updates too. My Eng needs some new toys.

You hit the nail on the head there. I was hoping for an E3 announcement for Episode 3 as well but no such luck.

I have been thinking about this exact problem, and I feel that valve could fix this pretty simply. All they need to do is enable L4D and L4D-2 to work off the same menu page. I doubt they will, but if I could pull up both games at once, and just decide which content (1 or 2) I would like to play, than that would solve the problem of my left4dead copy dieing in its infancy. I feel this would also alot for those who are going to like 2 better than 1, or vice versa. I doubt they will do it, but it would make everybody happy I think.

I agree though....Episode 3 is long overdue.