Follow Freeman through the world of Half-Life 2. Use a wide variety of interesting weapons, gadgets, and even animals to kill off your enemies! As Theoretical Physicist Gordon Freeman you are tasked with one simple task save the world from the Combine. Use your allies to help you progress through this amazing adventure! 

Graphics: The game has really good graphics. The animations look realistic, the mouth of the person (people) talking is realistic. The guns also react right as well. I have no complaints about the graphics. The "zombies" are pretty good too. If you use a saw-blade to cut through one, and hit it's waist, it will cut it in half, and continue to crawl towards you. Maybe that was a little gross, but the graphics for it are amazing. It is the original game from which the highly acclaimed Portal games come from. This game really set the bar high for most games. (Not to mention that it is part of the revolution of shooters/ FPS.)
I loved the graphics, and give it a 9/10. 

Sound: The game has great sounds. The guns all have unique sounds, the head-crab infested people make sounds that are cool, over all this is great. I didn't care much for the music, but it can be shut off. I didn't shut it off, because it only comes up sometimes. Plus it gives it a nice feel when you are going into a spot, and the music starts playing. The crowbar makes a cool sound, and even the sounds change depending on what you hit. I am really impressed at Valve's creative sounds here. The best sound is really the Gravity Gun, which I will talk about later. I really loved the sounds, that's it!
I was really impressed at the sounds, the changing sounds, when you hit different types of glass etc. I give it a 10/10. 

Addictiveness: I almost shouldn't have started Half-Life 2. It is hard to stop playing. I feel like booting up my PC and just playing this one game. It really has many things to do, but I am getting ahead of myself. The best part of it, is that there are no real cut-scenes! That sounds odd, but really the story progresses without them. The only thing which makes it not as fun, is that you can't play with friends.
The game is really addictive! I was only playing this game for about a week! I give it a 9/10. 

Story: The game has a great story. It assumes you played Half-Life 1, which I haven't. But even so, it has great story aspects! It could stand a little more character development, but I don't know how it is in the first. I still found it easy to follow, interesting, and not overused. Many games go with the same type of betrayal stuff, and its all fine, but come on. This game doesn't head in that direction, which makes it fresh, and fun. You are tasked to take down the Combine. Save the world. Sounds Simple, and it should be with the large arsenal you have!
The game really has a great story, but I couldn't give it a full 10/10, I had to give it an 8/10. 

Depth: The game has much to do. You have 5 slots filled with two guns. And one fruit-like thing, that helps get some animals that you can control. You have achievements, and hidden caves. (One has a thing singing, which I haven't found yet.) You also can find the lambda marks, and if you find the supplies, you get a little closer to finishing that achievement. You can find several ways to get the stuff done, there are so many ways to do the same thing. Choose your gun, or crowbar, or the fruit thing; and with these you can defeat every enemy you have. This is truly great! I was amazed how much they put into the game. 
The game has much to do, but sometimes it gets confusing (Where do I go?) and other times it feels a little linear. (I know that seems like an Oxymoron.) I give it an 8/10. 

I am adding a category here, which I only do for games that I don't play on steam. Read this, or skip it, but either way THIS WON'T BE ADDED TO THE ACTUAL SCORE.

Gameplay/ Controls: The games handles quite well. You have a variety of controls which are conveniently placed. All of them are planned out with care. They really couldn't have improved it at all. The flashlight, which you should use often, is easy to use, because it is right next to the "w/ s/ a/ d keys" and this makes it easy to keep there. You have limited battery life, which makes it challenging. This makes it more fun to play actually!
Because the game handles like a dream, I give it a 9/10. 

Difficulty: The game is hard sometimes, but really I didn't find it too hard. It wasn't too easy either, but really I didn't die too often. I only died 5-10 times, which is pretty good for me. I am not that good at games, but this game was fun, because they didn't make it too hard. They also made it more realistic, because you don't have regenerating health, which is commonly done in FPS games. This made it harder, but still kept it in the challenging, not impossible category. Sometimes it can get frustrating, because you don't understand what happened, but if you look around, and be observant, it makes the game much easier. It has aspects of a puzzle game, and if you keep this in mind, it's actually easy.
The game was hard at times, but never too hard. I found it really fun because it was challenging, but not too hard. I give this a 7/10. 

Overall the game is brilliant. You should be able to tell that I LOVED the game. I didn't give any category a rating lower than a 7. This should show that I was greatly impressed by Valve. As Always, the total score is just an estimate, based off of the scores and what I think it should get. The games gets a 9.5/10! This is really a great game, go out and buy it NOW!

darthyoda : Darn, looks like I've been really missing out, never quite got around to the "Half-life" series yet.

I have never played this game before but I do have it thanks to the Valve Complete pack and I do know that it's a really good game so I will give it a try sometime and it's updates as well. I really like how you added the gameplay category which was required in reviews back from when they were only in the Steam forum so I really like what you have done with this.

Overall, this is a really good review, tons of detail and random bits that aren't needed but ad to the quality, you make the game sound even better and that's what makes it so great, good job.