I had a look through some negative reviews for Half Life 2 on metacritic and I've realised that you will never be able to please everybody.
It doesn't play like CoD. It doesn't play like Quake. It plays too much like every other FPS. The graphics and and textures suck for 2004. It's too linear. I got lost in some levels because they're too big and confusing. The story was too long. It wasn't as long as Half Life 1*. Every mission is the same. Enemies are too generic. GMan is generic. Gordon has no personality. When's 3 Gabe?
I'm also baffled by the guy who complained that it wasn't really a game for the hardcore crowd and then said that he quit six hours in... just after Water Hazard (the airboat).
*I played Half Life for the first time last month, they're about the same length.
Half life two is one of those titles that it's rather overhyped.
I only completed it last month and, I hate to say it, it was really overhyped. Sure, generally it was gun and the story and such were great, however I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. The game has flaws, some of them worse than others, one of the main things that annoyed me to no end was the squad AI that was underused if those videos of it being useful aren't staged somewhat. The guns were bog standard except the gravity gun, pheromone thing, and the pulse gun and the crossbow thing. Past that, it's rather bland in terms of weapon choice. The ravenholme level was way too overhyped and it lost the atmosphere after a while.
Levels are a bit too big in some areas, while others are too small. I personally spent an hour on one section of ravenholme because jumping on some car traps wasn't immediately obvious(Hell, Grigori vaguely hinting towards that would've helped) and on the airboat, it took me forever on how to get to Eli's lab because jumping a ramp didn't make sense. The gravity gun is overhyped as while I'm sure I was not doing it right, but I could never figure out
why it wasn't as fun or cool as people said. The puzzles are archaic in some portions while others are in fact rather boring and don't add much in my opinion.
Now, this is coming from someone who, when it came out, was only four or five, so I honestly can't say much without
some bias.