Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review is for the collectors edition only (the actual game is awesome). The collector's edition - quite frankly - is a rip-off! To make sure you understand what you are getting: 1) Half Life 2 - The game 2) Half Life 1 Remake using the new Source Engine 3) Counter Strike Remake using the new Source Engine 4) Prima Official Hint Book 5) A T-Shirt The game itself is awesome, no questions asked. The remake of Half Life 1 is cool too, but you can download that for free when you buy the regular version of Half Life 2. The same is true for CS. So basically, you get a t-shirt (which is actually a nice shirt) and the prima thingy. The Prima book IS NOT THE STRATEGY GUIDE! Instead, it is a tiny booklet with excerps from the strategy guide and the "making of" book ("Raising the bar"). It is an advertisement for these two books at best and by itself almost completely useless. So basically, you are paying an extra 30 bucks for a t-shirt. Oh, but perhaps you want the nice big box? Think again! The box itself is crappy both in quality and in design. In fact, at first I thought the box got damaged and mangled during shipment, but it didn't. It just looks that bad! This is probalby the worst collector's edition of any game I have ever seen. It delivers little value, unless you want a t-shirt. It doesn't even have a printed game manual for crying out loud!