one of the most anticipated games in a while just came out, Half-Life 2.
if you haven't bought Half-Life 2 yet, i recommend NOT getting a copy at the store, but through the STEAM service instead. grab the Silver package. you get more games than retail, Valve (the hard working developers) gets more money instead of Vivendi / Sierra (the evil, big corporation publisher), and you dont have to deal with CD checks, cd key, or file authentication that the Retail version annoys you with when you want to play (the Steam version is ready to go without headaches)
you can read about the history of Half-Life 2 here. (removed)