It's distinctly average.

However for many people it was their first experience with an FPS that wasn't Halo or Call of Duty, so the fact you could do more than move forward and shoot in a wholly linear fashion was novel.

It's also got a bunch of Ayn Rand inspired politogarbage thrown in, which makes people feel intelligent to have played it and a scene that's supposed to be clever but ends up not being clever (The Andrew Ryan, phrase 'twist' bit). Though the unthinking morons who love it don't realise it.

The shooter mechanics found in the game itself are just dull, simple and lifeless and the one thing it could have had going for it (The Big Daddies) is rendered utterly benign due to other features.

It's basically just a consolified version of System Shock 2 with a rubbish facelift. I'd give it a 2/5.

Watch this video for an example of a person who is impressed by Bioshock.

It's a similar situation with Deus Ex Human Revolution, though in that case the game is at least above average.

All of the 'clever' pseudo-politcophilosphy is absolute trash but is delivered in a way that can be applied to 'current issues' so that just about anybody who plays the game can make the link and think they are smart; not to mention the plot is utterly ridiculous.

Then you again have the giant game breaking features that utterly trivialise the game, removing all challenge from it (e.g. the melee takedowns). I'd give it a 3/5.

Half Life, forever in my heart.

I love how good valve are at creating atmosphere in a game

My friend, its uncanny at the least.

forever in development, too. =(

Only the snore-fest HL2+Episodes :P

I loved them!

Only EP1 is a bit slow, the rest are fucking orgasm-inducing.

To be more accurate I liked parts of Half-Life 2 and, say, the first half of Episode One.

Episode Two and the rest of the others are just utterly soulless; driving down an empty road to a couple of single storey buildings with a few combine soldiers; the bland boat section that goes on forever; having to do the same thing twenty million times at the end of Episode Two...

There's lots of filler content in Half-Life 2 (lets not even mention the cut-scenes and that sickening female creation) with next to non of the inventive, challenging level design and excellent pacing found in the original.

Well I guess we just come from different generations.

I love me some half life 1/2

Average compared to its predecessors, perhaps, (System Shock, Ultima Underworld etc) but outstanding compared to its competitors. I think Irrational did well to compensate for 2 (and later 3) different platforms and to cater to what was and is a rather low-brow mainstream market. The same goes for Human Revolution. Developing games like these is literally as difficult as rocket science - there's a lot that can go wrong.

I think HL2 and the episodes are great because their design is creative, dynamic and constantly changing as the player progresses. Each level presents a unique feature or novelty, such as the traps in Ravenholm, moving and walking across planks to stay off the ground in the ant-lion levels, removing weapons in the citadel level or using the physics engine in simple puzzles. The pacing of the games are well thought-out - a quiet puzzle is followed by an action sequence which is then followed by an in-game conversation and so on, rather than level after level of running and shooting. I think it's a tour de force in single-player FPS gameplay.