I was looking forward to Half-Life 2 with all my heart, and now that I’ve finished it, I’m actually a bit let-down. I found the story to be kind of… empty. I also was disappointed by the lack of enemies to fight the biggest and most fun enemies to fight were the fewest in number. I was also disappointed that the game only introduced three new weapons from the original (though the gravity gun was fun), and took some of the coolest weapons from the original out completely (all four of the alien weapons, the satchel charges, and the trip mines).
The game’s graphics are the best I’ve EVER seen, the audio is fantastic, and the feel of the game owns any others out there, but I was just disappointed by it. I kept hearing that the game is the “Best PC Game Ever,” and that just wasn’t the case for me, despite the fact that I LOVED the original Half-Life endlessly.
That said, while people felt that DOOM 3 was overhyped, I thought it was an absolute BLAST to play through. I was always on the edge of my seat, always surprised, etc.
While I’m not going to compare the two in a formal statement (ie. saying HL2 is better than DOOM 3, or vice versa, since they are different games), I just think I had a lot more fun playing through DOOM 3 than I did HL2. I’m going to replay it in a few weeks, and see if my expectations were what got in the way of my enjoyment of the game.